By AIDAN KNIGHT

 

THE table lit up like Christmas at February’s Latrobe City council meeting, when discussing allocation of funds towards holiday decorations.

Each year, an agreed amount is put aside for council to spend on Christmas decorations of various descriptions in each town across Latrobe City.

It was discussed within the 2025/26 midyear budget review, via a motion from Councillor Adele Pugsley (Moe), that Latrobe City set aside $200,000 for Christmas decorations this year. Also included within the budget, but receiving next-to-no airtime in the discussion, was the following additional allocations:

  • Data collection at Mathison Park, Churchill (following the recent opening of the disc golf course) – $12,000;
  • Copyright agency agreement (standard Victorian local government charge for marketing) – $11,000, and;
  • Leisure and aquatic facilities strategic review (for maintenance and assessment of the centres) – $100,000.

These amounts, allocated first, came out of the forecast surplus 2025/26, and totalled $123,000 of the $586,000 estimated for the surplus. This left the updated surplus at $463,000, half of which Cr Pugsley proposed, via an alternate motion, to go to uplifting the face of the towns, big and small, across the municipality over the Christmas period.

This was seconded by Boola Boola Ward’s Cr David Barnes, who then rushed to speak too early – only to be halted by mayor Sharon Gibson for due procedure, allowing Yallourn Ward Councillor Steph Morgan to form opposition.

When speaking to the motion, Cr Pugsley referenced resident feedback on budget spending, seeing an “overwhelming community response that they wanted more Christmas decorations”.

“By allocating more money to Christmas decorations, I feel it would bring more connectivity to all of our towns, but also have the effect of increasing joy of our community at Christmas time,” she said.

The Moe Ward councillor also went on to describe the somewhat dilapidated state of current decorations at council’s disposal.

Cr Barnes opened his support by stating that “I think Christmas is a great thing”.

“It’s about all them (sic) ratepayers and giving stuff back to people and make their towns fantastic,” he said.

“Why wouldn’t you do something like that? I think it’s a great idea.”

Cr Morgan then asked Latrobe City chief executive, Steve Piasente, if council was expected to have a report on Christmas decorations presented soon.

Mr Piasante directed this to the city general manager, James Rouse, who clarified that there was currently no such scheduled report, simply a briefing for council on the matter.

Cr Morgan then made a second inquiry, as to whether the timeline of the funding implementation would shift if it was to be looked at as part of “the actual council budget or the midyear budget reviews”.

Mr Piasante said the two have a slight difference, as logically deciding something earlier allows for greater preparation time. Questions then materialised from Budgeree Ward’s Leanne Potter, who inquired if the $200,000 was “as well as, or instead of?” any existing money within the proposed budget.

The mayor informed her this would depend on the outcome of the budgets.

Jeeralang Ward’s Joanne Campbell asked if council usually buys decorations, under the impression they were a product of a specific grant from the state government. Mr Pisente redirected once again to Mr Rouse, who replied, revealing the major towns own decorations, while the smaller towns do not, and are often instead provided a small grant to organise their own, annually.

His words hung in the air momentarily, before the mayor said cheerily, “well I’ll have a question too”, asking how much is allocated to each town.

Mr Rouse told her it varied from $700 to $4000 per town association, but to all decorations, not specific to Christmas.

Mr Piasente then returned to Cr Potter’s question, and informed council that there is, in fact, an outstanding budget allocation which he recalled to be a total around $45,000, “not a significant amount”, which he took on notice to provide council a more exact amount to operate from.

With this cleared up, Cr Potter asked to put forward an amendment, to which the mayor asked, “are you moving an amendment?”. Cr Potter said yes, and mayor Gibson then asked what the amendment was.

Cr Potter explained that the amount allocated would be in excess of $200,000, noting Mr Piasente’s clarification, and asked to reduce the proposed amount to $100,000, “in lieu of the fact that there’s already $45,000 that the CEO spoke about”.

“Which would make the total $145,000,” she concluded.

Cr Morgan seconded Cr Potter’s amended motion, while Cr Barnes opposed.

Cr Potter spoke on her amendment, stating that she agreed with the first three points of the motion, specifically voicing her support for the disc golf course (which has attracted more than 1000 new visitors to the park since January), but saw it as irresponsible for council to allocate so much to Christmas decorations when there was other, more pressing, issues within the municipality.

“It’s great to renew and update decorations, to keep that vibrancy and the towns looking festive,” she divulged.

“We know that’s an economic stimulus to towns, to have those decorations out over the December period,” before citing infrastructure and capital projects as a higher priority, singing out for funds within the council agenda.

The mayor was seen to whisper to the chief executive, doing so as Cr Potter emphasised the importance of maintaining a strong investment in categories that “residents actually expect from us all year round, that actually make a big impact on their life, every day”.

“We can always add some more next year,” Cr Potter reasoned, “let’s see if we can spread it out across budgets.”

Cr Morgan agreed that “$200,00 – a lot to spend. It’s also above what we have been told what is needed (…) in the report we received.”

This amount mentioned was set at $100,000-$150,000 – meaning it has nearly doubled the maximum estimate, something Cr Morgan viewed as unreasonable, asking for “a sensible investment into our community, as opposed to an all-out splurge”.

Mr Piasente in this time had located documents for the specific amount from the previous outstanding allocation. This turned out to be $34,000, not $45,000.

Cr Barnes then spoke to the amendment, however somewhat out of order. The Boola Boola Ward councillor was asked to properly address his colleagues after referring to Cr Potter and Cr Morgan as “the girls”.

“We’re not infant children,” Cr Morgan reasoned to the mayor when she appeared somewhat exasperated that it was being called out.

Cr Barnes then resumed his opposition, getting under Cr Morgan’s skin by referring to her as if she was two separate people, “Okay Councillor Steph and Councillor Morgan”, although the Yallourn representative did not bite.

“What I really worry about,” he said, “is it’s about the ‘big four’.”

“I think a lot of the money goes into bigger towns – Churchill, Traralgon, Morwell, Moe. It’s about time they start to give a bit to the little people, you know, they get a little bit forgotten, and I’m surprised councillor Steph hasn’t said anything about that.”

It was at this point that mayor Gibson called out Cr Barnes off her own accord, asking him to refer to councillors properly.

“The way it’s all going it’s not right,” he went on to say. “You need to make it right for people what live in little towns (sic)”.

Mayor Gibson interrupted a second time, asking Cr Barnes to speak more directly on the amendment motion of $100,000 being allocated.

“If it’s $200,000, how much of that money would go to Churchill, Moe, Morwell and Traralgon?” he asked.

“Fair comment,” Mayor Gibson replied.

Cr Pugsley joined Cr Barnes in opposition, noting the excess amount the chief executive informed was to be carried over, but saw that the existing decorations were not fit-for-use.

“I don’t think $100,000 is enough to get any benefit for the smaller communities who are missing out already,” and wanted for a Latrobe City where all communities benefit.

In a surprise turn, Tyers Ward Councillor Darren Howe joined the pile-on against his usual allies, despite, in his own words, “a list a mile-high of unfunded projects”.

“I’m happy to go ahead with the $200,000, because it doesn’t mean we spend $200,000,” thinking of reducing process if it turned out to be more costly.

Cr Potter retorted to the extensive opposition with disagreement.

“The small towns do have Christmas decorations, we have some beautiful ones popping up in Boolarra, that have been made by the community – we’ve got fantastic ones across Yinnar. I don’t believe that every town is going to need to totally refresh,” she said.

Cr Potter went on to speak about the community togetherness of small towns coming together each year to make their own decorations, involving schools and craft groups. She remained staunch in her argument that $200,000 was too large an amount for such a cause.

The amendment went to a vote, and was lost 6-2, with everyone bar Crs Potter and Morgan – leaving the latter visibly dejected.

The original motion was then brought back to the table.

Cr Morgan was then granted the ability to speak on her original opposition.

‘I’m not against Christmas decorations – I love it, in fact”, she said, but warned it was an unwise use of the surplus, and leaving it at least to the main council budget a few months later would “ensure transparency and deep community consultation”.

Cr Morgan wanted to hear the public’s thoughts, on a municipality-wide scale, but was assured by other councillors that residents have made vocal outcry for new decorations.

Cr Howe made a persuasive argument that “every year it comes up that we’ve let our community down with Christmas decorations, so I’m happy for this (motion) to be in there (the draft budget)”.

This was echoed by deputy mayor Dale Harriman (Loy Yang Ward), saying “for the last six years we’ve been inundated with community members saying our Christmas decorations look tired, dated, tatty, when are we going to renew them”.

Cr Harriman hinged the room on the fact that they as a council must represent the people’s best interests, and the people are interested in freshening the festivities in Latrobe City.

Ultimately, Crs Potter and Morgan conceded defeat, although not before calling it a “rash decision in a cost-of-living crisis”, and accepted council’s decision to move the motion to allocate $200,000 on Christmas decorations.

The votes passed identically to the amendment earlier.