A different Harris set for election

THERE’LL be a half-familiar name on the North Ward ballot at next month’s municipal election with David Harris, cousin of current Central Ward councillor Mark Harris, set to nominate as an independent.

Yet those familial links don’t count for a lot, with the new comer citing the recent State Ombudsman’s report, and all councillors’ role in creating the environment for it to occur, as a reason for his push to get elected.

“Anyone in public office needs to be held to account for their record,” he said.

“That sits as a record for each of those councillors currently. It’s up to them to answer, but it’s a criticism of the entire council, I’m not isolating any particular person.

“My reaction to the report was disappointment and shock. While I would be at times critical of the council and officers, I would never have supposed that what’s in the report was actually going on.”

In making his pitch to voters, Mr Harris listed his achievements on the Miners Rest Primary school council, where he was president for six years, as evidence of his ability to work collaboratively with different levels of government.

Stating with gaining support for a kindergarten at the school and progressing to a $21 million overall upgrade, Mr Harris said he worked across party lines to get the best outcome for the community.

“By being transparent and playing a straight bat we were able to convince people we had a good thing and it was based on evidence,” he said.

“Both sides ended up promising us essentially the same thing. Now we’re going to start breaking ground and building a new school that’s triple the size of what we have.

“Because the 15 people on that school council worked together and were A-political, we achieved so much.”

As for what he wants to put on the agenda, Mr Harris said progressing town plans for Cardigan Village, Learmonth, and his home of Miners Rest, along with urban renewal plans for Wendouree and Ballarat North were all on his radar.

“There’s been constant delays, in my knowledge, over the last seven years to the Miners Rest plan,” he said. “But we really haven’t had a proper township plan in place since the 1990s.

“Looking at budgeting for the outcomes of those plans, I’m not necessarily seeing anything.

“These separate communities and small townships around North Ward have done all this work, now where is the budget to facilities the delivery of those things?”

Feeding back into his experience with Miners Rest Primary School, and as a dad with young children, Mr Harris see space for improvements in access to the City’s child and maternal health services.

“Across the metrics that early childhood is measured, our children score reasonably low in terms of their at-risk cohort as they move into primary learning,” he said.

“That the kind of thing where I think, righto, maybe that’s something as the service provider, the City of Ballarat needs to focus on.”

Mr Harris said that ability to work with key stakeholders is also reflected in his day-to-day job as Assistant Chief Fire Officer with the Country Fire Authority.

Starting as a volunteer two decades ago, he’s risen up the ranks into a paid position.

And while Mr Harris has worked on few municipal boards, like the Community Impact Special Committee and Grant Allocations Committee, all things considered he doesn’t expect that local government experience will give him much of a leg up.

“Whoever get’s in this time round, with the directors and structures having changed, and whoever the new CEO is, well, some of that past knowledge is going to be useless,” he said.

“The whole mechanism of how that place is going to work hinges on the people and the process and policies they bring in.

“It will help a little bit but probably coming in with a broader understanding of how the public sector works is, that’s going to be key to me.”