A Special Council Meeting was held last Wednesday to elect a Mayor and Deputy Mayor for the remainder of the current term. I am delighted to have been re-elected as Mayor and am equally thrilled to welcome Cr Geoff Ellis to the role of Deputy Mayor. I would also like to thank and acknowledge outgoing Deputy Mayor, Cr Bruce Kent, for his incredible support and contribution over the past year. I look forward to working with Cr Ellis and our fellow Councillors, on behalf of the community for the next 12 months.

Straight after the Meeting, it was off to Melbourne to catch a flight up to Canberra for a trip focussed on developing a successful funding application for the proposed Bass Coast University Centre, one of our top 10 advocacy priorities. We were lucky enough to secure a one on one with Federal Minister for Education, Dan Tehan on Thursday, as well as meetings with Senators Louise Pratt, Jess Walsh and Tim Ayres, Senator Richard Di Natale’s office and Minister Mark Coulton’s office.

The meetings provided an excellent opportunity to continue promoting and discussing all of Council’s advocacy priorities, key projects and funding applications among the Ministers and Senators and to gather support from all sides of government. The responses we received were really positive and encouraging and have provided us with confidence that our Bass Coast University Centre application will be competitive. The funding is provided through the Regional University Centres program. Places are limited - there is only $11 million to be spent across five locations Australia wide. We are asking for $2 million to establish and operate the Bass Coast University Centre in Wonthaggi.

While interstate, we also attended the Regional Study Hub Symposium in Jindabyne on Friday, which gave us an opportunity to network with representatives from University Centres from across the country. This was a truly valuable experience that helped to highlight how incredibly significant it would be for our community to establish a University Centre in Bass Coast.