Bold ‘green army’ jobs and rates plan for boosting city economy to go before Darwin council

A proposal that includes rate cuts and would see the City of Darwin council open its coffers and fast-track repair and maintenance works, to hire international students and others who can’t access social security help, will go to council on Tuesday night.

Darwin alderman Mick Palmer has urged council to open its coffers and spend $1 million on hiring a green army of students and backpackers to beautify the city and forgo a payment in a bid to show leadership amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

A DARWIN alderman has urged council to open its coffers and spend $1 million on hiring a green army of students and backpackers to beautify the city and forgo a payment in a bid to show leadership amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The bold plan will be put to Darwin council at Tuesday night’s meeting by Mr Mick Palmer.

The proposal would see a green army of workers carrying out fast-tracked council urban beautification initiatives.

Also contained in a submission by Mr Palmer will be a recommendation that council forego rate payments – rather than defer – for those ratepayers who are now experiencing substantial coronavirus-related financial difficulty.

This includes sporting groups, commercial property owners and residential ratepayers.

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Mr Palmer said it was not good enough to simply tell international students, backpackers, and others who for various reasons can’t access social security support that they are on their own.

“Around $1 million plus some on costs and at $25 an hour buys about 40,000 hours’ work,” he said.

“Through the process of identifying and prioritising urban beautification initiatives many proposals were deferred for future consideration. Now is that future.”

Mr Palmer also said deferring rates for a quarter would not help ratepayers in financial difficulty.

“City of Darwin can afford to open its purse strings and help in this time of crisis,” he said.

“It can forgo some revenue and it can bring forward or initiate new capital works repairs and maintenance programs.

“We all have to do our bit to help those who desperately need it and I know there are others on council that think the same as me.

“The council of Darwin is largely debt-free with healthy cash reserves and is in a good position to initiate targeted and appropriate responses to the economic and social crises brought by COVID-19.”

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Mr Palmer said City of Darwin chief executive officer Scott Waters should be empowered to identify and start projects that can be reasonably completed.

Darwin Lord Mayor Kon Vatskalis said he supported giving jobs to those in need and reducing rent but his hands were bound in terms of forgoing rates.

“Council cannot forgo rates, it’s prohibited by legislation,” he said.

“We can only defer payments for a period of time.

“We can only suspend interest on rates that are not paid in time – we’ve done that.

“As for employing people, I have discussed it already with Mick and my CEO (Scott Waters). “I suggested we create a ‘green army’ that can plant trees as per my idea of reforesting Darwin.”