On Tuesday, September 3rd, the Cooranbong Business and Community Alliance hosted a candidate forum. Because Rosmairi Dawson would be speaking on the following nights are the Mayoral candidate forum and another lead candidate forum, the decision was made to give the public an opportunity to hear from the group’s second candidate on the ticket, Graham Davidson. His speech was warming received and we’ve made it available for you to read below in full, or you can scroll down to watch the video with all the candidates speaking (Graham starts at 29 minutes).
“I’m speaking to you tonight because my group’s lead candidate, Rosmairi Dawson, will be speaking at tomorrow and Wednesday night’s forums, and you deserve to know about the candidate who could well end up on Council if Rosmairi is elected Mayor.
I’m running because I passionately believe every one of us has the capacity to make a difference, to participate in the political process, to stand up and say, “I believe we can do this better.”
A professional creative of over 45 years, I moved to this region in 1994, taking a job as senior commercial director at NBN Television. I am an artist, writer, publisher and have taught animation and drawing skills at Hunter Street TAFE.
I have also lived in Newcastle and Maitland.
In 2012, whilst running my own production company, I storyboarded, directed and edited the commercials and video at the heart of the award winning Love the Lake Tourism campaign. One of my influences on the campaign was the insistence of the West Ward’s greatest natural treasure, the Watagan Mountains being included, with Gap Creek Falls, a location I describe as “nature’s cathedral,” highlighted as a special feature.
In my work over the years with Lake Macquarie City Council, I have produced the 3D visualisations of how the rejuvenation of the southern side of Toronto’s main street would be impacted by the removal of the fig trees. That work gave me an insight into some of the functions of councils and how they have to deal with sometimes unpopular decisions.
Within the same project scope, I produced the 3D visualisation for the town entry signage that identifies each of our towns and villages, long before the first of them went into production.
I have been a speaker at Council’s Write Here Write Now Festival, facilitated a monthly writers group at Kilaben Bay, delivered a publishing workshop at Belmont Library and ran kids drawing classes at the Morisset PCYC.
When the community emerged from the COVID lockdown, I was engaged by Council to help activate the Lake’s foreshore with a series of QR code treasure trails which I designed in conjunction with Council staff and hosted on my own servers.
All these activities speak to two themes: place and community.
In my work while living in Maitland I became deeply involved in community and place activation. I started an early childhood literacy initiative and even founded and directed a writers’ and arts festival featuring 70 events spread across two weekends and six venues.
Most of the events were free to attend which ensured that the festival was accessible to those who would benefit from it the most.
My passion is helping people to take their stories to the world that might otherwise never be published.
Why? Because I believe in a community where we help each other. And a Council that truly works for the community looks to see what it can do to give a leg up to those in need.
Due to a lack of affordable housing in the city, I believe that Council has a role to play in supporting charitable organisations like Southlakes Incorporated, Survivors R Us and the church charities. Through engaging with these and other organisations I have come to appreciate how dire this homeless situation in West Ward has become as the cost-of-living crisis rolls on. To make matters worse, these charities are themselves struggling to cope with ever rising costs.
They need a hand to help prevent a homelessness crisis escalating into an even deeper law, order and health crisis. They need Council to help them with premises or land that can be leased at a peppercorn rate so they can provide emergency accommodation or somewhere families can park safely at night.
Council also has primary functions to carry out, basics that everyone has a right to expect. It’s in this area where I feel West Ward is most being let down.
How lucky were our friends in the east when the magnificent Fernleigh track extension opened? Meanwhile, 1.5 kilometres of shared pathway on Fishery Point Road that was promised to be completed by 2015 remains a dangerous goat track, a heavily used stretch that is unsafe for the elderly and disabled and just one example of works that seem to have vanished from Council’s plans throughout the ward.
It was wonderful to visit to the recently opened Windale Hub, a much needed facility that will help bring the community together with its broad range of resources… an important leg up for the community.
Meanwhile, the site of Morisset’s planned town centre development and hub remains a vacant block more than 15 years after it was first pledged to the community.
I’m running for Council because we need representatives who are true independents and not beholden to a party, whether big or small, and who are prepared to stand up and say that our needs are as important as those in the Northern parts of the Lake… making decisions not because they’re easy but because they’re the right thing to do for the community that Council is there to serve.”
