Mathew Dickerson returns as mayor of Dubbo council

Popular small business owner Mathew Dickerson has revealed his priorities as new councillors start work to get Dubbo council back on track after a tumultuous year.

A “new beginning” has been promised for Dubbo Regional Council after new councillors met for the first time and popular small business owner Mathew Dickerson was elected unopposed as mayor.

Mr Dickerson served as mayor on the previous Dubbo City Council between 2011 and 2016 before it was forcibly amalgamated with Wellington Shire Council.

Supplied Editorial New Dubbo mayor Mathew Dickerson. Picture: Ryan Young

The successful small businessman is the owner of the Axxis technology store in Dubbo and he is a member of various community groups, most notably his local Rotary Club.

As the driving force behind numerous fundraising initiatives, Mr Dickerson has helped raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for local charitable causes.

Recently he was instrumental in raising funds for the Lifeline Central West organisation to purchase a building of its own in Dubbo.

In 2019 he narrowly lost out on a seat in NSW parliament after he ran as an independent candidate in the state election.

The seat of Dubbo was won by Nationals candidate Dugald Saunders, but Mr Dickerson made it one of the government’s most marginal seats and the city is now reaping with the benefits as the government dolls out millions in grants and infrastructure funding in a bid to retain support.

The 10 councillors who were successful in the December 4 election. Picture: Ryan Young

After new councillors were inducted, Councillors Lewis Burns and Vicki Etheridge nominated Cr Dickerson for the top job.

No other candidates put their hand up to run.

Wellington councillor Richard Ivey was also elected to the position of deputy mayor, unopposed.

After the first council meeting, Cr Dickerson said his first priority as mayor was to regain the trust of the community.

“We cannot achieve anything as a group of councillors and council staff if the community doesn’t trust us,” he said.

“I’m not going to talk about the past, but I just have a feeling that at the moment the community doesn’t have the same level of trust in council as I know they can have in council.

“Our actions will be what people remember, we can talk all we like about how we’re new enthusiastic councillors and ‘please trust us’ and ‘everything’s fantastic’, but the first time we don’t reflect that will be when the council will have lost the trust of the community again.”

Richard Ivey was elected deputy mayor. Picture: Ryan Young

The previous council became engulfed in scandal and disunity, which culminated in the imposition of a performance improvement order by former NSW Local Government Minister Shelley Hancock.

Mr Dickerson said the council could rebuild trust by improving transparency and communications with the community.

“Sometimes councils aren’t always forthcoming with decisions that are being made,” he said.

“When I was mayor previously we had an Apex Oval project that was over time and over budget and we said to the media team at the time that we needed to get a media release out about that.

“You can imagine them saying ‘you don’t put out a media release about being over time and over budget, are you crazy, what sort of idiot mayor have we got here’. I said ‘yes we do’, it’s not my Apex Oval, it’s not council’s Apex Oval, it’s the community’s Apex Oval so we tell the community what’s happened.

“That’s the way you do it, you communicate and you make sure you’re telling the community what’s happening and you make sure you’re transparent in those processes.”

Mr Dickerson said improving council’s relationships with other regional organisations and councils was also a priority, along with finding ways to address the infrastructure backlog and improve council’s finances which have been hit hard during the Covid pandemic.

“We’ve got a new beginning, we’ve got a fresh start, it’s up to us to make sure that we repay the trust the community’s put into us,” he said.