Paula Doran
Sitting in the unincorporated area of Western NSW, the tiny town of Silverton is independent of local government and is managed entirely by its own committee.
In the past 12 months, both the town and the committee have been busier than ever, with two Mundi Mundi Bashes, and the accompanying influx of travellers, a Mad Max movie, and a mini-film studio set up outside the town, and an overhaul of the guiding documents that keep the train on the rails so to speak, in Silverton.
Silverton Committee Chairperson, Helen Murray, said the governing body for the town had been run off its feet.
“There’s three of us on the committee with two government advisors. Technically, anyone who is a resident of the town can be on the committee.
“There’s been so much we needed to do to accommodate two Mundi Mundi Bashes, which were great and brought so many people here – we’ve installed extra rubbish bins – had to update our toilet blocks because the poor old original toilets couldn’t cope with the number of people so we’ve done a lot of work on that,” she said.
“We’ve done an awful lot of work around the Silverton youth camp, we’ve actually rebranded that as the Silverton Old Courthouse Accommodation to try and attract broader groups of visitors.”
More broadly though the Committee has focussed on future proofing both the committee itself and the town.
“Our greatest achievement so far, is we’ve prepared a new strategic plan, we’ve commissioned RDA Far West to help us with that, so we had community consultations, surveyed residents on what they wanted for the future and I think we’ve come up with a fairly progressive strategic plan.”
The Committee is now in the middle of updating its constitution.
“It’s been in place for the last 20 years, since the installation of the committee. It’s a bit outdated, and it’s not really working for us that well, so again, we’ve got RDA Far West working on it with us…speaking also to government departments, Office of
Local Government, Crown Lands, Department of Fair Trading, etcetera, so that we can make it more appropriate to our needs,” Mrs Murray said.
“Being our own local government brings with it its own challenges. If you live in Silverton you’re eligible to stand for election, which is done through the NSW Electoral Commission, so you go through that whole proper process, but the thing is none of us have Local Government training.
“I’ve been on and off this committee since it’s inception and I’ve learnt a lot on the way but I’m still learning.”
Mrs Murray said it could be challenging for people because they were essentially volunteers doing the jobs of government departments.
“We’re managing Crown Reserves, etcetera, which is to the community’s advantage, but it’s a lot of hard work, and sometimes we’re struggling and we need help from those departments.
“Our job this year really has been to document how the committee runs and make it so that it’s more attractive for people in Silverton to come on to the committee in the future. We do three-year terms and then at the end of those three years we really hope that there’s someone who will pop onto the committee and continue it on.
“So we’re trying really hard to make it more attractive to participate in and make it easier to manage.”
With a permanent population of 32, Mrs Murray said it would be great if more of the community got involved with the Committee.
“I understand that everyone’s busy with jobs and businesses that we all have going on in our lives. But we’re really at a point now that if we lose this committee this community loses a lot. It would go back to State Government management probably and we wouldn’t have the lifestyle that we have now, so we really do need more people within the community to get on board.
“We can’t rely on anyone else to look after this, we have to do it ourselves.”
Mrs Murray praised the community input that occurred on a daily basis, including one resident who had taken it on himself to collect the garbage and clean the public toilers. She said a grant from AGL had also meant the Committee was able to hire an admin person, which had been a great help.
“Our goal at the moment is to ensure that when the next committee comes into place, they can pick up where we have left off and the transition is as easy as possible. It’s so important that we maintain that professionalism, but more importantly, get more community input so that we can continue to be responsible for our own town.”
