Before anyone reaches for the keyboard, takes a deep breath and types something they may later regret, I have prepared two short community guides explaining the Berri Barmera Council’s Draft Annual Business Plan and Draft Long Term Financial Plan.

They are not Council documents.

They are my personal interpretation of the information contained in the official plans, written in plain English for people who probably do not have the time, interest or enthusiasm required to work through pages of budgets, depreciation, asset renewal figures and financial forecasts.

That is not a criticism. Most people have lives to live, families to look after, businesses to run and bills of their own to pay.

The Annual Business Plan is essentially about what Council proposes to do during the next financial year, what services and projects it intends to provide, and how those things will be funded.

The Long Term Financial Plan asks the larger and more uncomfortable question:

Can we afford the future we are planning?

Neither document makes particularly light reading. They deal with rate increases, debt, roads, buildings, wastewater infrastructure, staff costs, depreciation and the growing cost of maintaining assets built by previous generations.

There is no secret pool of money hidden behind the Council chamber.

Every service costs something. Every asset eventually needs repairing or replacing. Delaying maintenance generally does not make it cheaper, and doing nothing is still a decision, often an expensive one.

That does not mean residents should simply accept everything placed before them. People have every right to question the figures, challenge priorities, suggest alternatives and tell Council when they believe it has got something wrong.

But there is a difference between criticism and abuse.

Council staff live in our community. Councillors live in our community. We shop in the same shops, drive over the same potholes, pay rates and charges, attend the same sporting clubs and hear the same concerns around the supermarket aisle.

Nobody involved is perfect, and neither are the plans.

However, posting insults, accusations and recriminations without reading the information does not fix a road, renew a wastewater pipe or reduce Council debt. It merely creates more noise around decisions that are already difficult enough.

I prepared these guides because I am tired of seeing serious community discussions reduced to anger, personal attacks and claims that anyone who disagrees must be corrupt, incompetent, entitled or somehow opposed to the interests of the Riverland.

We can do better than that.

You may agree with my interpretation of the plans. You may disagree completely. That is democracy.

All I ask is that people look at the information, consider the choices and contribute respectfully.

The Riverland was built by generations of people who worked, volunteered, argued, compromised and occasionally admitted that somebody else may have had a reasonable point.

Perhaps we could try a little more of that.

Read the Community Guides

Well, here we are.

The ABC has had its say, the Murray Pioneer has had its say, and the community has had the opportunity to have its say, although I must admit I have been pleasantly surprised that, to date, I have not been attacked on social media.

Time will tell, of course, because people who believe they have ammunition, do have a remarkable habit of eventually pulling the trigger, or throwing the hand grenade, especially when a keyboard gives them the courage and protection that a face to face conversation doesn’t.

But before anything else is said, the central point remains simple. I drove over the prescribed limit, I pleaded guilty, I was convicted, I was fined, I lost my licence for six months, and I accept all of that.

There is no clever sentence, no media criticism, no public explanation, no personal history, and no amount of reflection that changes the fact that I got it wrong. I have said that before, and I will keep saying it, because accountability is not a line you say once in the hope people move on. It is something you carry, and in my case it now has two wheels, a helmet, and the real possibility of being humbled by headwinds and magpies.

Yes, this is the new bike.

For the next six months, when people see me riding around Berri, Barmera, or wherever my legs and remaining dignity can take me, they should consider themselves lucky they are not me. That is the reality.

For the media, this may be a story. For readers, it may be a few minutes over coffee. For Facebook, it may be a potential bonfire, although so far the matchbox has remained surprisingly closed. For me, however, it is now daily life.

That is the part easily missed in a headline.

The ABC moves on. The Murray Pioneer moves on. The newspaper eventually finds itself wrapped around food scraps, sitting in a recycling bin, or lining the bottom of the cocky cage. The social media attention, if it comes, will also move on, because outrage has a short attention span and a very busy diary.

But I will still be without a licence and working out how to get to Council duties, community commitments, appointments, family obligations, seeing friends, just going out for a meal and all the ordinary things most people do without even thinking about it.

That is the real consequence. It is not a 20 second news grab or a headline. It is not a public shaming exercise that ends when people get bored. for me it is every day, for six months, and I accept that because consequences are supposed to be inconvenient.

I also want to be clear that I am not asking for sympathy. My website is called Being A Better Man, not Being A Perfect Man, Being A Saint, or Being A Bloke Who Has Never Stuffed Anything Up And Would Like A Certificate Of Achievement.

The point has always been growth, reflection, humour, humility, resilience, and trying to make the next decision better than the last one.

This time, I learned the hard way with a six month daily calender reminder attached to it.

I also want to acknowledge the Berri Barmera Council’s response. The Council has nothing to justify for my conduct, and I agree with the position that has been taken.

I remain able to perform my duties as an elected member. Not having a driver’s licence does not prevent me from reading agendas and documents (about 80% of a Councillor’s life!!), attending meetings, asking questions, representing residents, considering risk, challenging decisions, supporting good governance and financial management, or doing the work I was elected to do.

It makes some of the logistics harder, but it does not make my commitment weaker and my promise to be transparent and accountable thrown out with last weeks Murray Pioneer.

That matters to me, because I did not stand for Council to be popular, comfortable, or decorative, and I can tell you the $15,000 a year allowance gets burned quickly in time, transport and stress. I stood because I believe local government matters, community service matters, accountability matters, and because I would rather be in the arena trying to do something useful than sitting safely outside it throwing cheap advice at those who are.

This week has also reminded me of something about public life.

Some people will judge fairly. Some will judge harshly. Some will wait quietly to see what happens next. Some will be kinder than expected. Some will be worse than expected. Some will read the whole story. Some will stop at the headline and feel fully qualified.

But I will not let one serious mistake define the whole of me.

I am also a proud father, a proud former Police Officer, a proud former Detective, a mental health advocate, a councillor, a community volunteer, a traveller all over the world, a writer, a frontend loader/backhoe driver and someone who has been through enough difficult chapters to know that shame only wins when you hide from it and let it build into crippling regret without a lesson attached.

I have also not hidden in the preceding three years on Council. I have replied to many social media posts, putting my direct phone number and email address on social media and invited people to contact me directly. To date, I would estimate I have done this 50 times, and to date, not one person has taken up that offer, which says something about how public debate now works.

It is easier to post than to talk.
It is easier to accuse than to ask.
It is easier to throw stones from behind a screen than to have a proper conversation with a real person.

As for the Murray Pioneer, I appreciated the respectful conversation I had with the editor, but I still think there is a fair question about journalistic depth when an article appears to lean heavily on the ABC report, my letter, and my blog, with the ancient and noble craft of copying and pasting apparently still alive and well in local journalism.

I understand why I was named. I am an elected member. I expect and accept public interest.

But I also noticed that two other drink driving matters were reported in the same edition without names, including one involving a higher reading. I am not saying those people should have been named. I am saying consistency and context matter, particularly when reputations, public confidence, and fairness are involved.

So where does this leave me?

It leaves me remorseful, accountable, embarrassed, punished, and still standing. It also leaves me riding a bike.

There may even be benefits. I may get fitter. I may feel closer to nature. I may discover parts of town I normally drive past. I may also discover that nature includes wind, rain, flies, magpies, uneven roads, and the quiet public humiliation of arriving somewhere sweaty when everyone else arrived by air conditioning.

So if you see me on the bike, wave.
If you want to talk, stop me.
If you want to criticise me, that is your right, I have earned some of it, but, expect a reply.
If you want to understand me, ask me, talk to me, get to know me.

This matter is not over for me because the articles have been printed. It is not over because the court has spoken. It is not over because the headline fades. It continues every day for the next six months and into the future when I’m driving again. It is all, not really about the driving….?

The point of a consequences… is they often keep on giving….

I wish I had learned the lesson before I had to live it…

Now I will live it…

With my personal strength, resolve, integrity and character in tact….

and… a helmet on my head! And, knowing my luck, probably into a headwind in the pouring rain!

Australia Day rolls around and I feel two things at once.

I feel proud. And I feel… careful.

Proud, because I love this country. Not in the loud, chest-thumping way. In the quiet, lived-in way. The way you love the place that gave you your first breath, your first scrape of gravel on a knee, your first job, your first heartbreak, your first mates, your first “how ya going?” from a stranger who meant it.

Careful, because I know there will be protests, and I know the words will be sharp: “Invasion Day.” And I get why people feel pain. I’m not blind to history. I’m not trying to sandpaper the past into something comfortable. I know settlement wasn’t always kind. I know terrible things were done. I know Aboriginal people have had a hard go of it since western settlement, and that’s putting it politely.

But here’s the hard bit for people like me: I didn’t do that.

I was born here. So were my mum and dad, my birth mum and dad, and my adopted mum and dad too. I didn’t arrive on a ship with a musket and a flag. I didn’t write the policies, run the missions, make the removals, or sign off on the “experts” who thought they were doing good while causing damage they didn’t understand.

And, I know something else that doesn’t get said much: history can hurt more than one way, to more than one group, for more than one reason.

I was adopted. And there were hundreds of white kids taken from white mothers too, because once upon a time it wasn’t acceptable to have a child out of wedlock. Authorities

thought they were doing “the right thing.” Same story, different uniforms. It came with consequences no one wanted to look at until much later. Pain doesn’t check your skin tone before it arrives. It just arrives.

My pain, your pain, doesn’t cancel anyone else’s pain. It doesn’t compete with it. It just sits alongside it and says, “I’m here too.”

And then came more people. The Chinese. The Afghans. Yes, the camel men, the ones who helped open up the inland and left a legacy most of us never learned properly at school. Those camels are still out there, tough as old boots, so good we even sell them overseas now. Then the ten-pound poms. Then Greeks and Italians. Then Vietnamese, the people who came here after we’d just fought a war with their homeland… or a “police action,” depending on who’s writing the headline.

All of that is part of us now. That’s not a threat. That’s the miracle of it.

So when someone calls me an invader, I don’t get angry first. I get confused. Because, I’ve spent my whole life trying to do what I thought Australians do.

I thought being Australian meant you were a bit of a larrikin but you turned up when it counted. Brave when you had to be. You stood up for people who couldn’t stand up for themselves. You looked after the sick, the weak, the lonely, the person who didn’t fit. You said please and thank you. You gave everyone a fair go, until they betrayed you, and then you said, “Sorry mate, can’t do it,” and you moved on without carrying hate around like a backpack full of rocks.

I thought we were the people who tell the truth and still be mates afterwards.

We built things. We explored. We farmed. We grazed. And we farmed and grazed in some of the harshest country in the world; and we thrived. We carved towns out of dust and stubbornness. We also built the kind of country where someone can have a laugh about a big guitar, a big prawn, a big boot, a big merino! Where I live we even had a big orange that went broke. Honestly, these things are so Australian they should be on the coat of arms next to the kangaroo and emu. We can’t even keep our giant fruit financially stable, but we’ll die trying. That’s our brand.

We also fought wars. For allies, for mates, and sometimes because we were told it was the right thing to do. We defended our own northern shores. People died. Good people. Young people. People whose names still sting when you read them on a plaque. We remember them “at the going down of the sun”… and in the morning too, whether anyone’s watching or not.

So, why do so many of our young people now look at service in defence, police, emergency services, even community leadership and go, “Nah”? Maybe it’s more complicated than one reason. But, I do wonder if part of it is this? We’ve become a country where you can get shouted down for loving the place that raised you. Where pride gets treated like a crime scene. Where people who never carried the weight of service are sometimes the loudest voices. Voices, telling everyone else what they must say, what words they must use, what feelings they’re allowed to have.

And that leaves blokes like me, and plenty of women too, feeling a bit lost. Not hateful. Just… lost.

I’m a self-funded retiree. No concession card. No special deals. No freebies. I am not whinging here just stating the facts. I worked, I paid taxes, I put a few dollars away. I wanted a quiet retirement and to give something back. Not because I’m after applause, but because I’m grateful. I’ve served as a cop, 38 years, my youth gone on years of shift work and missed

Christmas lunches, walking the New years eve street breaking up fights not raising a beer, birthdays, my kid growing up and a few days in hospital getting stitched up. I’ve served in the community because I saw the purpose of duty and fulfilling an oath. I now serve as a local elected member on our local council. Yeah, I get paid. I worked out the hourly rate for the hours I do and it works out to be about. $3.50 an hour. And I don’t reckon I do enough. I put up with the jibes, derogatory comments, attacks and complaints from those that have never served. The parochial who’s depth and breadth of their experience doesn’t extend beyond the next town.

I’m not asking for a medal, because I never got those either. I’m just asking to feel welcome in my own home, my own town, my own country.

Because, I can’t feel guilty for something I didn’t do.

I’ll never apologise for somebody else catching influenza. I will say a heartfelt, “I’m sorry you’re going through that.” How can I’ll help you get better if you’ll let me. That’s what mates do. That’s what humans do when they’re at their best.

And that’s what I want Australia Day to be.

Not a day to deny the past. Not a day to weaponise the past. Not a day to point fingers like we’re all standing in some moral courtroom. But a day where we can say:

• Yes, some things were wrong.
• Yes, some people carry pain that deserves respect.
• Yes, we can tell the truth without tearing each other apart.
• And yes we can still love this country.

Because loving Australia doesn’t mean pretending it’s perfect. It means believing it’s worth the effort.

I want a country where Aboriginal kids feel proud and safe and strong, not just “acknowledged.” Where culture is treasured, their communities are supported properly, and their voices are respected, not used as political footballs.

I want a country where migrants feel like they belong without having to erase who they are. Where difference isn’t feared, but it also isn’t forced into categories that divide us for sport.

And, I want a country where people like me can stand up on, January 26, or whatever day you choose and say, “I love Australia.” Because its not the date, it’s the sentiment that matters. And suing those words does not mean you are treated like a villain.

Because Australia Day, to me, isn’t about conquest. It’s about celebrating our home.

It’s about the weird, stubborn, generous, flawed, funny family we’ve become and the choice we have, right now, to keep choosing each other.

So this year, if you’re celebrating, celebrate with kindness. If you’re mourning, mourn with truth and forgiveness. If you’re angry, aim it at the systems that failed people not at the bloke next door who’s just trying to understand where he fits.

And if you see someone who looks like they’re walking around with a bit of quiet sadness under their smile, maybe just do the most Australian thing you can do:

Say ‘G’day mate, how ya going”. Offer a chair and have a chat.

Have a beer. Have a laugh. Tell the truth gently. listen more than you speak.

And then together let’s get on with the job of being Australians who smash it, not by shouting over each other, but by lifting each other up.

Because the past matters.

But so does what we do next.