Last night was the final time that four councillors would be sitting in council chambers participating in debate and voting on a particular item on the agenda to benefit the Lismore community.

It should be noted that Councillor (Cr) Vanessa Ekins is running for mayor in the upcoming council elections but is not running as a councillor candidate. If she does not become mayor, Cr Ekins will retire.

Mayor Steve Krieg introduced a Mayoral Minute where the outgoing councillors could talk about their time serving the community in a way or recognising their term as Lismore City Councillors.

"This is probably the most relentless and unrewarding job anyone could put their hand up for, especially considering the amount of remuneration that is offered to do this work. And so it was actually based in and around Councilor Ekins having the opportunity to speak to this after 20 years of being in the chamber. But it's it's not the time that you spend here, it's the effort that you put in. And whether you're a one-term councillor or a two-term councillor, or in councillor Ekins's term, if my maths is correct, a five-term councillor, everyone who has decided not to contest the election on September 14 deserves a level of recognition."

COUNCILLOR PETER COLBY

"I'd like to say I'm the one-termer. When I came into this council as a one-termer, I always agreed with Steve when I joined that I would be a one-termer, and then I decided, after looking at Joe Biden and being 76 years of age, there was time not to go any further, because I started to lose names, and I started to decide whether the decisions I was making were right or wrong.

"It has been a learning curve for me. I came out of a corporate world that basically totally restructured differently and operated differently. It was a real eye-opener. I can see the challenges, and I can see the issues that everybody faces on a day to day basis.

"I generally congratulate everybody, because it's the dynamics in the room are interesting. I also believe that the outcome is questioned by the design of how the system works, and I think you're dealing with a system that is probably a little bit archaic, but it needs to be able to be driven so that it actually gives proper outcomes.

"What I saw in the three years that I was here, and particularly with the floods, everybody realised what the role of the councillors were. It wasn't necessarily actively involved, but it was an interface into the community during the flood period, and was limited in its ability to be involved. Hence, we saw the issue of the Reconstruction Authority coming into play.

"It was very engaging, and I enjoyed it, and I enjoyed the dynamics. I struggled with some of the issues of governance that I came from big corporations, where they had boards that were designed for outcomes, where, in a lot of cases, councillors are actually coming into this, bringing their ideologies and what ideas they'd like to bring forward to the community, which is different with respect to a company that's got outcomes are designed to make profits and to move forward.

"I'd like to congratulate everybody here in the room for having what I consider a very tolerant time, and it had its dynamics. I enjoyed it, although sometimes I wondered why I was sitting here and nodding off to sleep. I should have been in bed at 70 years of age. But, at the end of the day, I'd just like to thank everybody for the time and the effort they put into my time here and made it welcoming; even though I didn't have any idea half the time what was being talked about, I enjoyed it. Thank you."

COUNCILLOR DARLENE COOK

"I think representing the diverse communities of our LGA is a great honour and a privilege. I've been doing that for now eight years. I've tried my best. I think I've done a reasonable job. I hope so, anyway. There have been a number of people who recently contacted me with messages of goodwill, knowing I'm leaving the council. So maybe I ticked a few boxes and advocated for a few people, and they were happy with me. Those who aren't happy with me also expressed their opinions quite often on social media, but there you go.

"Local Government was a passion I got in my teens when my local council started a youth council, and I was one of the representatives of my school on that council for a year, and it opened up the world of global government. They weren't just roads, rates and rubbish, they were so much more. And although we viewed the council from a teenager's perspective, not a ratepayer's perspective, it was really exciting. It was interesting what was happening out there.

"Admittedly, it took me another 50 years to get around to putting my hand up to go and run in 2016, but it was a great move. It shocked quite a few people and raised quite a few eyebrows because I was always the quiet person in the background. My partner was the public political figure. So there was quite a few people thought, oh, that's challenging you to get out of your comfort zone, isn't it Cookie? Well, it did, and I still write voluminous notes on absolutely everything I want to say, so I don't stuff up and go, Oh, f, which I have done once. But anyway, these things happen, don't they?

"One of my big passions on coming on to council was the finances of Council, audit, internal controls and so forth. I was quite surprised that this council had no internal audit function, had no risk management function. So championing the audit risk and improvement committee's creation in the early years of the last term was something I really worked towards. I need to thank John Hartley and his team for their patience in answering lots and lots of questions from me over the years.

"There's a couple of things I've been really proud of. One was, as an openly gay woman and a well-known activist in Lismore, it was a really proud moment for me and my LGBTIQA community to get council to confirm their commitment for marriage equality in 2017 and to fly the rainbow flag over chambers. That sent a message through the gay community in this area, which is the highest per capita gay community outside of Sydney, that this council was embracing and including the gay community into the mainstream. It's a far cry from what it was 40 years earlier when this council debated getting me run out of town, but the world changes.

"There's a really emotional moment. It was actually at Rous County Council, the meeting the day the plebiscite was announced, and I walked into Rous, and my colleagues had bought bottles of champagne to celebrate. That was really big.

"One thing I'm really proud of is during the drought of 2019, working with Greg Bennett to bring an urgent motion to this council to join Richmond River and Kyogle Council in sending low loaders with hay and water tankers out to drought-stricken farmers at Glenn Innes and Inverell. There was a really big convoy from the three councils taking water and hay out to the farmers.

"There's one example where councils can look out for communities beyond our own borders, and that help we gave them was repaid so generously in 2022 in our hour of need when communities across Australia and councils across Australia sent us help. It's just part of that local government family and networks that we can all work together and that we can all share each other's burdens and we can help out when it's needed.

"Like Councillor Ekins, I am saddened that some lot of opportunities have not come to fruition in this term of Council. I think after the floods, what was being looked for was unity, unity of purpose, 11 people compromising on our individual philosophies and ideas and coming together to represent our community and advocate for our community from a position of strength and common vision. And that hasn't happened. We've had pretty well documented disunity, mixed, confused communication, no real vision and a lot of disrespect for each other, for our staff and for our community.

"The mayor asked us at the beginning of each meeting that we reflect on our role in this chamber and look about working together for the betterment of our community, but we've seen chambers meetings become stressful, aggressively argumentative, constantly disrupted, and it's become, at times, in my opinion, an unsafe workplace for councillors and especially for our staff. And that's the reason I'm not running for a third term.

"My best wishes to those of you who are going to have a go and put your hands up again; well done. I hope the new council is a more peaceful and collaborative entity. I offer my heartfelt thanks to the staff for their support and advice over the years, especially to Bronwyn Bishop and to Christine for unfailing good-humoured help. And to the most important man in the building, the guy who kept us fed every Tuesday night for the last eight years, thank you to Brian Moss. Cheers guys.

COUNCILLOR ELLY BIRD

"What a hard act to follow. I'm going to do that thing that I often do, which is get up and talk unprepared but with passion. Sometimes people in this community have given me nicknames because of the emotion that I bring into this chamber, but I serve my community with heart. I've always brought that to this realm, I bring it to everything that I do in this community. And there have been times in this chamber when I've been particularly impacted by decisions that we've made. Perhaps I've learnt along the way to be a bit stronger and to realise that the collective impact of the decisions that we make together over a period of time can, you know, roll with the ones that you lose and celebrate the ones that you win.

"I remember when I was first elected, I was so enthusiastic. I was so excited to be elected to council because I felt like we were on the brink of a renewable energy revolution, and we were going to strive forward and do great things. And then we got that massive flood five months later, at the beginning of this term. I remember sitting in this room with all of the new councillors, and we had a bit of a sharing circle about how we felt coming into a new term of Council. I clearly remember saying in that forum, we have challenging times ahead of us because climate change is here. We live in a disaster risk hot spot, and we are going to get smashed by more disasters. Our challenge is going to be how we work together to navigate those challenges that we have before us, how we work together in times of incredible duress, how we overcome our philosophical differences, how we overcome our ideologies and work together in the best interests of our community.

"I really think that our challenge at local government is to try to always think about the forest and not get distracted by the trees. So often, we're running into these little saplings, and there's all this stuff in front of us that gets in the way of thinking about the bigger picture, thinking about the long-term vision, about how we can think about and care for our community moving forward, 20, 40 years in advance. That's the challenge for local government, for all governments at all levels.

"I think we do ourselves a great disservice if we ignore the fact that climate change is here. It's real. It's happening. We're going to see more disasters at the scale of the bush fires, of the floods. We're going to see more, and I think it's beholden on local governments, on all governments, to plan rapidly and effectively for those changes that are here in our community, and that's what I've always brought to this chamber.

"That said, I've learnt a lot about financial, fiscal responsibility, about good sound money management. And I remember again, in the early days of my term, sitting with the then-general manager who said to me, well, Councillor Bird, what do you want your legacy project to be? And I was like, we've just had a briefing on Fit for the Future. I want my legacy to be good, sound, financial management, which felt very strange because it wasn't like, where's your youth centre, or where's your skate park, or where's your art gallery. It was financial management. I wanted to leave this council in a better financial position than I found it.

"I think that incrementally, I have stuck to that in terms of my decision-making, and I feel like we're in a slightly better place. It's earned me unenviable nicknames at times. I'm very pleased not to carry Rate Rise Elly into my future, and I hereby hand it with good grace to Steve. Welcome, Rate Rise Steve to the chamber and to the campaign.

"I wouldn't do it any other way. I would not change anything. It's been an absolute privilege and an absolute honour to serve this community. To work with all of the good staff, who do such an amazing job guiding this council, dealing with us, supporting us, responding to us, and all of the good councillors that I've had the great privilege of working with over the years as well. Some of your strongest allies can come from the other side of the political fence, and I think that's worth remembering. You don't always know who your best colleagues are going to be when you walk into this chamber. And if you work together respectfully, share information, share ideas, have respectful engagement before the matter comes to the chamber, I think you're very well positioned to move forward in a collaborative way. In a way where you have come to an agreed position that everyone can feel slightly happy with.

"And I think, imagine if, imagine if we could have a council that worked collaboratively, that works together for the best possible interests of our community, regardless of if we see things slightly differently. So, all the best to you, Mr Mayor, and your campaign, all the best to you, Councillor Ekins, in your campaign and everyone else that's re-standing, and best of luck in the next year."

COUNCILLOR VANESSA EKINS

"Well, first, I'd like to commend, particularly Councilors Bird and Cook for their dedication and hard work and their excellent speeches in the chamber over the years. It's a tough gig. And, I'd like to reflect really, Mr. Mayor, on the actual role of councillors, which is to represent the community. That's our role. And I was speaking to a business downtown who said they'd complain to council for six months about getting the light on the awning outside their business working. And they spoke to me, and I put in a council request, and followed up, and a week later, the light was fixed. Now that is representation councillors.

"But seriously, the other thing that councillors do is conduct business. Conduct the business of council in the chamber, and that involves reading documents. Sometimes, we have four 200-page documents that we need to read. There's a lot of reading.

"Networking with the community is another big part of our role, site visits and also to consider the expert advice of our staff. I have to say that we've had some really terrific staff over the 20 years who put in a lot of work and are open to the odd phone call and putting in a request for assistance with a notice of motion. Bronwyn is at the end of that telephone and email often. So, I actually would like to express a lot of thanks for all the support of staff and the hard work, and sometimes the invisible work that they do, but they take their jobs really seriously and councillors appreciate that.

"The other thing councillors that we're supposed to do is debate matters in the chamber, and one of the reasons for that is so that the public can observe the decision being made and actually see respectful interactions occur in this area and a view being articulated. We're supposed to express different views and come to a decision based on what we've read, the advice we've been given, what our community wants and what we hear in this room. And I have to say, I've been pretty disappointed by the lack of debate in this term of Council. It's not just a matter of putting your hands up, councillors. It's actually a matter of formulating an argument and respectful and transparent decision-making.

"It's been pretty uninspiring, actually, and ineffective, but I just like to remind you all that the purpose of being here is to work together to get outcomes for our community, and that this room is part of how we do that and airing our views respectfully, taking into consideration all of that information that we have is critical to that role.

Mayor Krieg ended the outgoing councillor reflections by thanking the councillors.

"You have served your community with integrity and with honour and with passion and certainly won't be forgotten. I've certainly learned a lot from each of you over the last three-odd years, and your contributions will not go unnoticed and unrecognised. So, thank you to our councillors who have put themselves in a very unenviable position. It's not easy being in the public eye, and you've done it with grace and with dignity. All the very best to you, and thank you on behalf of the people of Lismore."