Councillor Anthony Patterson paid tribute to departing Councillor Liz Campbell at the ordinary Council meeting on 19 July 2022. You can view the recording of the speech on Council’s YouTube channel.
I have to say how proud and honoured I am to bring this tribute for you, Liz Campbell, as you mean so much to many of us, right across our community, our state, our country. How do I put into words this tribute to an amazing lady?
While it is a great honour to pay tribute to you, Liz, following your decision not to recontest the upcoming by-election, it is with sadness that I realise these Council Chambers will soon be without a very special lady. Liz’s vitality, vision, political savvy, collaborative style, sound leadership and stylish presence will be sorely missed but not forgotten.
I first met Liz when we both set out advocating for a safer community a number of years ago, speaking together in halls all over the Macleay. Her passion for our community was very contagious and one of the main reasons why I set out to be a community representative, a Councillor.
Liz was, and is, my inspiration and has always been there for me for advice and support. I’m very proud to call you my friend, Liz.
Liz has been a firm fixture here for 14 years, after being elected to Kempsey Shire Council in 2008. She served two years as Deputy Mayor and was elected Mayor in 2011. In 2012, Liz was the first popularly elected Mayor in the Macleay Valley and was re-elected as Mayor in 2016 for a second four-year term that was extended to December last year due to the pandemic.
Liz’s dedication and work ethic throughout this time have been exceptional. Her loyalty and commitment to the Kempsey Shire community are steadfast, and she has worked tirelessly 24/7 to improve the quality of life for our people in the community across all facets of the shire.
Having been born and raised in Kempsey and living in her family home, instilled by her parents with a strong community service ethic, Liz not only served on Council but volunteered her time and energy to many service organisations within the Macleay Valley.
She held executive positions over many years with the Macleay Valley Business Chamber and her dedication to Rotary saw her awarded the Paul Harris Fellow Medal. Liz was elected to the Country Mayors Executive in 2017, and her longstanding support for the Macleay Valley Mustangs and Macleay River Historical Society saw her invited to be their respective patron. Until recently, she was Chair of the Australia Day Committee and Chair of the Mid North Coast Joint Organisation.
Within her role as Mayor, many of the people with whom Liz came into contact she had known for many years or even a lifetime. Her relationship with the local community was quite ‘personalised’ and she was often heard to say that ‘the Macleay Valley community is my community’.
She was fierce in her defence of the Macleay and strived to build a community that was inclusive, where everyone – regardless of their background, wealth, race, culture, religion or age – could feel that they belonged. Yet she was able to walk a fine line that embodied this close connection while still maintaining good governance and impartiality that in her role as Mayor she knew was essential.
One of Liz’s great gifts was, and is, her capacity to build relationships with people across all walks of life and her ability behind the scenes with all levels of government, business, community groups and public service organisations to make things happen. This gift delivered tangible improvements to the services and facilities our community now receives that greatly benefit how we live and work.
Her travel and tourism expertise and business acumen helped shape plans for the Macleay Valley to become a prime tourism destination, and she actively promoted the natural beauty and positive attractions of the Macleay at every opportunity to help grow our local economy, with initiatives such as the Macleay Valley Food Bowl, as mentioned earlier.
It was Liz who started the Mayoral Community Fund, which has donated funds to many students, clubs and community groups in her years as Mayor, starting with monies not used in her mayoral position, such as not taking a Council-allocated car and using her own vehicle and/or paying her own way many times when on Council business or community business representing our Macleay. Liz, I hope you never thought this went unnoticed.
Her leadership in times of bushfire, flood and drought has been inspiring. She tirelessly lobbied state and federal governments to raise awareness of our plight and for the funds to help rebuild homes and community infrastructure destroyed and damaged in these disasters. But she also generously gave up her time with great compassion to local people who had lost so much.
Liz was instrumental in so many significant achievements Council and the community delivered over the past decade or so, many brought about by her vision, tenacity and ability to build a collaborative team effort. With Liz, her drive and ambition were never about self-aggrandisement but her fiercely held belief that together we could make the Macleay Valley a better place to be.
There are so many to list, and Council records hold scores of infrastructure improvement projects, community programs, strategies and masterplans Liz worked with Council, government and the community to deliver over the past 14 years. I’ll mention just a few highlights that under her leadership came to fruition:
- Liz felt a strong sense of duty to help provide disadvantaged kids in our community with a chance to realise their dreams. From its inception, Liz has been a steadfast supporter of the Macleay Vocational College on a personal level and as Mayor. It was a great day when Council gifted the land in Reginald Ward Street to the college so they could continue the vital work they do to support kids who’ve had a rough start in life. Another initiative in this vein that meant a lot to Liz was helping to organise the visit by Father Chris Riley, founder of Youth Off the Streets, to address around 1,000 secondary students at the Kempsey Golf Club.
- After years of working with government, the opening in 2016 of the $82 million Kempsey District Hospital saw local residents provided with the quality health care they deserve. Liz has continued to do so much behind the scenes to support the expansion of the medical services and entice medical professionals to Kempsey Shire.
- Overseeing the delivery of the Kempsey Bypass Masterplan to revitalise the CBD into a destination of choice once Kempsey was no longer a highway town involved years of planning and hard work, but the outcome is one the community can truly be proud of.
- As a key part of this, Council pursued a cinema complex to generate economic and social development in the heart of Kempsey. A collaborative effort between government, Council and business, the $6 million-plus project faced many hurdles along the way, and it took vision and commitment to build a state-of-the-art four-screen cinema complex that opened in December 2019, now enjoyed by the community.
- A key passion of Liz’s was to deliver better educational facilities in the shire. Council and the Country Universities Centre Board have worked towards creating a university presence in Kempsey Shire since 2012, and the dream became a reality when the Country Universities Centre welcomed its first students last year. Liz is proud to hold the position of the Country Universities Centre’s first Chair.
- Under her leadership in 2017, Council took the difficult but necessary step to undertake an external review of the organisation’s structure and culture. This initiated a period of significant change, transformation and growth that has continued over the past four years, and in that time our new Kempsey Shire Council team has built the foundations for a strong community-centred and financially sustainable organisation, and I believe the working relationship between Liz and our GM, Craig Milburn, has seen our Kempsey Council organisation rise and rise and rise.
- Liz has been our main advocate for Kempsey’s second traffic bridge and has been lobbying government for many years, and I say when it’s built ‘the Liz Campbell Bridge’ is my choice.
Her life in Council was not always easy. Dealing with bullying, disrespect and unruly behaviour by others, she kept her head up, and with the support of her devoted husband, Ray, and her friends and family she never took her focus off delivering the best for our community, her community.
I can’t let it pass by not mentioning her number one supporter, her husband, Ray, who has been there by her side all the time, often commenting fondly that he was ‘the Mayor’s handbag’.
Liz, on behalf of Kempsey Shire Council and the wider community, our heartfelt thanks for all that you gave and our admiration for all that you achieved over the past 14 years. You have set the mayoral standard and benchmark that we can only aspire to.
The Macleay Valley, your community, that you love so much is a far better place because of you. We wish you and Ray the best possible future, for you have given us – your community, the community you love – everything you have.
Thank you, Liz Campbell.
