Ben Smith @ Ballina

Hi Everyone,

This will be up on the Ballina Shire Website shortly, but I thought I’d post it up on here too as I’m sure a lot of people are a little bit curious exactly who I am and where I come from, so here it is…

Cr Ben Smith is a new young fresh face on Ballina Shire Council, elected in September 2008.

Ben is the youngest person ever elected to Ballina Shire Council, offering a unique perspective of ideas, thoughts and strategies for the long term future of the shire.

Ben comes from a background in software engineering, having developed and released business software worldwide with Australia’s largest software companies, and has a background in small business spanning almost a decade, specializing in the field of IT and communications.

Ben, more recently has been working with the majority of the clubs industry in Northern NSW as a lead IT consultant.

Ben loves the lifestyle our area has to offer and is dedicated to long term sustainability of the shire, both environmentally and economically.

Ben is passionate about empowering the community, to give citizens a voice and a chance to have greater say about the direction of our shire.

Ben is currently single; his interests include bush walking/mountaineering, gym, salsa and the nightlife scene.

Hi All,

I spent today reading through the council papers, researching and preparing for the ordinary meeting on Thursday.

I’m really excited about the upcoming council meeting this week, it’s going to be a big one, lots of interesting and controversial issues and additionally, the potential to make some solid progress for the Ballina Shire abroad.

Everything is on the table this month, Ballina’s LEP, various donations to be considered, Cr Jeff Johnson has put up some interesting motions, you have councillor expenditure policy, some interesting statistical data on fuel consumption and of course, Allan Rich makes a cameo appearance back from the grave to provide support for the motion for video recording of ordinary council meetings that will surely create a thriller atmosphere in the chamber.

Almost like a plotline in a movie, and ironically would make for interesting viewing, ha.

Video Recording Ordinary Council meetings with provisions for taking into considering of privary is workable, and an important part of the process of maintaining an informed electorate and healthy democracy.

Notice how, however I was very specific with the video recording, there are legitmate privacy reasons that will need to be addressed and will be addressed.  There are also, for obvious reasons the necessity to only film ordinary meetings and not confidential sessions or committee meetings.

Any proposal of this nature needs to be thoroughly thought through and done properly, and I’m hoping that will be done on Thursday and we can get it through in a comprehensive form that supports these ideals.

As I write this it’s 9pm now and I still haven’t had dinner, but before I finish up I do want to touch on the issue of fuel consumption which makes a return appearance in the October meeting.

Back in the July 2008 meeting council requested that a report on council’s fuel consumption be presented to council by the October meeting, this report has been produced and the results of it, to myself atleast, are extremely interesting.

The report explains that diesel amounts to over 70% of our fuel consumption.  The report also notes a large portion of that diesel usage is from the ferry and other heavy vehicles the council owns.  Further to this, the report basically explains to meet our target of reducing our fuel consumption by 30%, council is continuing to downsize its fleet and look at other alternative ideas.

For a number of weeks now I had been looking at ways to reduce the running costs of the ferry so that we can sustain the ferry in the long term, biodiesel was an idea that came to mind, after further discussing the idea in general with John Truman and realising the true potential of biodiesel within our shire I have discovered, in light of the report on fuel consumption, that biodiesel has massive potential and it’s usage can save the shire up to $700,000 pa. 

In addition to this, it’ll reduce council’s co2 footprint by around 78% (source: US Dept. Energy and Argiculture did a report on the use of biodiesel) and thus go a long way in achieving our reduction goals.

So basically in a nutshell, this is where I’d like to see council take a potential biodiesel program…

- Council will work with local cafes, take away businesses etc within the shire, collecting waste cooking oil that would normally be thrown away or end up in landfill.
- These businesses receive recognition and support.
- Council then uses this to make it’s own biodiesel.
- The biodiesel is then used within the fleet to reduce costs and any surpluses would be onsold to the community via whatever viable means of doing so.

By adopting this we will be:
- Saving around $700,000 pa, massive savings
- Reducing our carbon footprint by around 78%
- Reducing landfill/waste within the shire.

Additional advantages of adopting such a concept include the following:
- Bio diesel works in existing diesel engines no need to fork out money for new vehicles to adopt the new technology.
- Minimal upfront cost, we can get a trial plant up and running that’ll produce 500 litres per week for around $5,000
- As above, potential for massive ROI.
- Bio diesel can be produced for as little as 24 cents per litre, and the price will be much more consistent and will fluctuate less than the price of petroleum based diesel.
- It will drastically reduce the operational costs of our south ballina ferry operation, so that we can sustain affordable fares.
- It will potentially provide for additional commercial opportunities for the council to then onsell surplus biodiesel.

The list goes on, but basically this is a key policy I’ll be working on over the coming couple of months, and hopefully we can get a successful trial out of it within 3-6 months, and then if successful move it into full swing.

Anyway, it’s getting late, so i’m going to finish up, feel free to comment.

Goodnight all.

Cr Ben Smith

Normally I’d refrain from making any specific comments about party politics federally on this blog, but today I had to make an exception.

http://www.crikey.com.au/Media-Arts-and-Sports/20081017-And-the-Wankley-Award-goes-to-Conroys-net-filtering-scheme.html#comments

http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;1399635276;fp;16;fpid;0

The whole thing about federal politics was last year everyone just wanted to get rid of howard, and fair enough, he was becoming far too cocky and lost touch with the average man on the street, along came Rudd who promised the world, a populist and at the time seemed to be a good option, he started the term well, and then has managed to continually screw things up from there, the alcohol tax, which was nothing more than a revenue raiser, and as the people on the ground know, was a complete balls up in deterring “binge drinking” and other anti-social behaviour.

People just changed their habits, they simply outsmarted dumb policy.

Now Mr.Conroy and our friends at the Rudd government have decided to top that by coming up with dumber policy, this policy is the concept of filtering the internet.

During the federal election last year, the howard government wrongly at the time made labor out to be communists, which in my mind was extreme and just plain wrong, yet, nearly 12 months later we’ve been dealt up with an internet censorship policy that, the only country it compares to is China itself.

The Rudd Government is proposing to filter internet access for every Australian in the country, whether you like it or not.  They will be offering a child friendly based filter and an “opt out” option(which is still filtered) where you can have a little more access then your 12yr old.

There are a ridiculous number of problems with such a proposal, The obvious one is choice, we are adults, we are human beings and we have the right to make responsible decisions for ourselves and our children and thus view whatever we damn please on the internet.

Controlling what people can and cannot view is a communist policy, plain and simple, it is anti-democratic in every way possible.

The other problem is that it’ll block some sites which we should have full access to view, filters are not perfect, more so, in relation to the filters as if Australia’s internet speeds weren’t slow enough already compared to the rest of the world, well guess what? your internet just got slower.  Filtering takes time, and the end result is the censorship would create additional problems with broadband in Australia that we just don’t need.

The final thing I’d like to point out is that, as with all good dumb policy, smart people will just work around it, there are a number of services on the internet, that you can sign up with and utilize a proxy server to send and receive your information, so for example, you can have your data proxied via the US, which means whatever can be accessed there, you’ll have access to, high school kids have been using this trick for years, to get around school filters, and I suspect the next day, if this legislation gets through, you’ll have tutorials floating around the internet on how to get around the filter.

Assuming those tutorials aren’t filtered.

It’s been proven world wide any government that has tried to legislate the internet has always failed miserably, The US and their Net neutrality act is one such recent example.

But the bottom line is this, it’s just plain idiotic and I would suggest that the common man would already know and be aware of this fact, and it just goes to show just how out of touch with reality federal politics is, and I can only pray for the day that decisions affecting the common man, are actually made by the common man, and not by a circus full of clowns.

Cr Ben Smith

Hi All,

Well, technically I’m now 3 days into the job as a councillor.

I’ve just spent my time this weekend rotating between the process of partying, sleeping, researching and reading up on various council documents, a diverse lifestyle.

Friday afternoon I went into council chambers for the first time as a councillor, which was a unique feeling, you’re walking straight into a pre-established, somewhat large operation, as a key decision maker straight off the bat.

There’s no corporate ladder to climb, no small business to build, it’s just all there right in front of you.

I can see how people’s egos can build up in this kind of arena so quickly, one day there’s just an average joe blow, doing their 9-5 job, the next, they walk into one of the most important buildings in the shire, greeted as the new “bosses” of the place and are told they have to now make decisions that will impact on the lives of 40,000 people.

This is the biggest challenge that I’ve come to terms with over the last few days.  It’s not about the decisions themselves, look at any given ordinary council meeting and you’ll find 70-80% of the time councillors agree on the decisions, it’s about the challenge of not letting the system destroy your identity, who you are as a person.

The arena of politics and specifically government itself is full of a lot of obstacles, a lot of viewpoints, a lot of stakeholders, a lot of flaws, laws, framework etc.  It’s a minefield, and it’s very easy to avoid the field all together then make your way through it.

As a new councillor, or even an existing one at that, you’ve got these obstacles thrown at you every day of your term and it’s very easy to react to them, in a moment of fear or doubt, avoid them, dodge them or do whatever you have to do to play the “game” of politics.

But ultimately, by doing so, it’ll destroy your sense of self, your true self.

You may come out of it a good politician, but a good politician and a good person isn’t necessarily the same thing.

It’s a real internal conflict for me, and many times I sometimes ask myself if I should really be in politics at all, I know there’s a lot in regards to leadership and strategic management that I’ll learn in this new environment, but I’m concerned that there’s other things in this environment that I really would rather not to learn.

The other thing I’m concerned about, being in such a serious environment, is that I’ll lose my ability to have fun, which is absolutely crucial to a good life regardless of age in my opinion.

So with that said I’ve learnt it’s important to stay true to yourself, to not let any new environment, whether it be council or anything else in life for that matter, overwhelm and control you, but even more so, you can’t be afraid.

You need to know that deep down you are enough, that everything you’ll ever need to have a great life and to make good decisions is already inside of you.  The external world tells us otherwise, it’ll tell you, you need to buy this, learn this or do this to be “enough”, you need this house or this car to be “enough”, but the reality is that that’s all essentially bs.

There’s an old Chinese saying “If you cannot find it within yourself, where will you go for it?”.

Everything comes from within.

I’m ready for council, I’m ready for my first chamber meeting this Thursday and I’m looking forward to being myself and putting my best foot forward.

Ben
(Cr Smith) 

Well after several days of what it looked like to be Phil Silver being re-elected as Mayor, it’s turns out…Phil Silver has been elected as Mayor.

Which means that the 3 remaining councillors in C ward are automatically elected, including Myself. 

My result on it’s own disregarding the Mayoral vote, in my opinion was good considering I didn’t occupy all of the booths with volunteers on the day or at pre-poll, had I have done that, I imagine my vote would have increased quite proportionally.

I need to thank all of the members of the community, approx 13%ish that did give me your number one vote, I’ve got a number of things planned that will further democracy and empower the community, in addition to this, I feel that there are a number of issues where a simple, honest, non-political viewpoint would be extremely beneficial and I’ll be offering just that.

I need to also thank ALL of the support I’ve had from every stakeholder and many current Councillors within the shire.  The members of CAN, including Jane Garnier and Marilyn Perkins who have all been extremely supportive, a big thank you to John Felsch and his team of volunteers who actively supported me, a big thank you to to Sharon Cadwallader for her active support and importantly, a big thank you to Allan Rich who has been extremely supportive over the last 12 months.

Everyone who has supported me so far, I am extremely grateful and I look forward to working with you all in the coming years.

Moving Along.

 In politics, the most important thing is to stay true to yourself, soooo many people who had potential or might have been nice people to start out with have came out arseholes who refuse to listen in the end.  They forget who they are and what they stand for, they forget what they’re all about, where they came from, and what it’s like in the real world on a day to day basis.   

 I promise you that I will stay true to myself. 

 My life mantra is “Follow those who seek the truth and run from those who have claimed to have found it.” 

My promise is to maintain this, my promise is to maintain an open viewpoint at all times, I’ll always be seeking new ideas, new information new feedback to make the best decisions possible, I’ll never assume that I have the best idea or I know what’s best, I’ll always be open to discuss, debate and consider anyone and everyones point of view. 

I believe that every single person on this planet has something great to contribute and I hope to empower members of our community to bring that out of themselves and offer it.

My message is all about positivity and I’m excited about what I feel can be achieved when you throw a guy like me into the council dynamic. I’m looking forward to being part of a new council team.  I’m looking forward to dealing with the challenges that lie ahead but most importantly, I’m really looking forward to working with everyone, all members of the community, all the stakeholders and all the councillors because I know that when we all work together as a team we can achieve miracles.

Ben.

Reverse donkey.

Some people get the donkey vote others the reverse and some, somewhere in the middle.

 Reasonably happy with my position on the ballot paper obviously there’s one better position I could have gotten, I haven’t ever really had much luck with election draws so far, the donkey vote is typically worth between 1-1.5% which is always a handy addition to any result, it’s a little uninspiring to admit that but that’s just human nature at work.

 I’d like to also think that a bit of good policy and some new ideas are worth a few votes too, but we shall wait and see.

 Ben

Testing Testing 1,2,uhh 3?