The CEO of the Mornington Peninsula Shire, John Baker, was guest speaker at our Club meeting this week on Tuesday 21 January at Toorak College.
John, who has previously held key public sector positions in the UK together with senior roles at KPMG and Ernst & Young joined the Council just over a year ago in December 2018.
Together with his family John moved to Australia from England five years ago. On this Australia Day weekend he will become an Australian citizen.
In a most interesting keynote address John spoke about the Values of Council, especially integrity, and key strategic and tactical matters facing the Mornington Peninsula.
These issues included:
- Ensuring that the Peninsula is able to cope with both an increasing population and an exponential rise in annual visitor numbers.
- The need to improve our system of public transport, especially by increasing the use of buses. John noted in passing that government is prepared to spend over $120 million on fixing road bottlenecks at Rosebud however isn't inclined to spend $20 million on bus transport which would lead to a significant improvement.
- Dealing with an increasing number of road accident fatalities, leading to Council obtaining State Government approval to reduce many Peninsula local road speed limits to 80 km per hour.
- Providing employment opportunities, especially for young people who wanted to remain on the Peninsula.
- Balancing the need for green wedges with opportunities for industries to develop, especially around the Western side of the Peninsula including at Hastings.
- Working out ways of having jet skis interact safely with beach goers and boating enthusiasts.
- The difficulty of working within a rates framework limiting increases to around 2% pa.
Following his speech of approximately 30 minutes John then answered a variety of questions from members.
In thanking John and presenting him with a RC Mt Eliza glass, President Ross thanked John for a most interesting address.