My Priorities for Kingborough

Long Term Financial Planning and Asset Management Reform

Ending operating deficits, delivering surplus budgets with rate rises no higher than inflation, and ensuring ratepayer money is spent with discipline and rigour.

Kingborough Council has run operating deficits in 19 of the past 22 years, with rates raised at more than double the rate of inflation in the past two years. Two major infrastructure projects were delivered over budget and behind schedule. This is not a funding problem; it is a discipline problem. Aldo will ensure the Long Term Financial Plan and Strategic Asset Management Plan are developed in genuine alignment, engage the right expertise to manage this professionally, ensure the Audit Panel has the intelligence it needs, and ensure the annual budget process is informed by accurate, forward-looking asset data. The goal is to live within our means and avoid large rate increases caused by poor planning. Aldo voted against the 2026 budget and its 6 per cent rate rise, and will bring forward a motion requiring Council to deliver a positive P&L budget with rate rises no higher than inflation.

Planning Reform That Actually Works

Fixing Kingborough's failing planning system: reducing delays, correcting unjustified LCZ applications, and making council genuinely easier to deal with for residents, builders, and developers.

Kingborough's Local Provisions Schedule rollout generated more negative representations than any other Tasmanian council. Over 1,500 properties face zoning uncertainty, with landowners unable to secure finance or insurance and development applications blowing out to years of delay. Many architects, designers, builders, and tradespeople now refuse to take on work in Kingborough because our council is too difficult to deal with. Aldo will ensure the Landscape Conservation Zone is not applied unless no other option exists under State Rules, fast-track straightforward residential and commercial applications, and ensure all future planning decisions are transparent, evidence-based, and community-informed.

Review of Council Department Functions and Community Interactions

Commissioning a structured review of compliance, environmental services, and planning operations to address widespread community frustration and restore trust between council and residents.

Too many residents, families, small business owners, and developers come to council for help and leave frustrated, intimidated, or worse. Aldo will work with the CEO to commission a structured review of how key operational departments function, how they interact with each other and the community, and whether they are delivering value to ratepayers. The review will cover compliance functions, environmental services, and planning operations, examining whether objectives are clearly defined, whether tools are proportionate, whether staff are building trust rather than eroding it, and whether outcomes match what the community actually wants. A structured review of the planning function has already commenced as of March 2026.

Housing Supply and Affordability

Enabling more housing supply by removing planning barriers, setting ambitious approval targets, and working with the state government to unlock land supply in growth corridors.

Families are being priced out of Kingborough. Young people cannot find a home. Developers willing to invest are being buried in red tape. Housing supply in Kingborough is directly tied to improving the planning function; the March 2026 review of planning operations is the mechanism by which most improvements must be delivered. Without planning reform, the housing agenda does not move. Aldo will set ambitious housing approval targets with public reporting, streamline subdivision and development approvals, work with the state government to unlock land supply in growth corridors, cut the cost and time burden on homeowners doing extensions and renovations, and support innovative housing models including social and key worker housing.

Growing the Business Rate Base

Pursuing a deliberate strategy to grow Kingborough's commercial and industrial rate base so council can invest in infrastructure without continually pushing the cost onto households.

A live music venue in Kingborough was recently required to spend $5,000 on a noise consultant, not on soundproofing, but on a report. That is what red tape actually costs, and it is why Kingborough's small business rate base is too small for a municipality of our size. Business owners consistently report that our development approval and planning processes are prohibitive: it is easier, faster, and cheaper to set up in neighbouring LGAs. Aldo will make Kingborough genuinely open for business by removing unnecessary planning and approval barriers, develop a Kingborough Economic Development Strategy in partnership with local business and industry, lift Business South's funding and effectiveness, identify and plan for commercial and light industrial land supply, apply a proportionality test to conditions, reports and studies imposed on small business, and leverage major projects such as Spring Farm Village, the Tasmania Devils AFL High Performance Centre, and the JackJumpers training presence as a platform for local job creation.

Partnering with the CEO on Customer Service Transformation

Working with the CEO and senior leadership to establish measurable customer service standards, create a planning concierge function, and build a council culture that guides rather than obstructs.

Customer service at Kingborough Council needs dramatic improvement, as widely acknowledged, including by the CEO himself. Aldo will partner with the CEO to establish measurable customer service standards with public reporting, create a dedicated concierge function for planning and development enquiries, set response time guarantees for all resident enquiries, and build a staff culture that guides ratepayers and developers on the most efficient way to achieve their goals. Customer service transformation also means realising the benefits of council's Digital Strategy Plan, embedding innovative technology and AI reforms into council operations to support faster approvals and speedier responses.

Rural Stewardship and Environmental Common Sense

Includes Bushfire Risk and Fuel Load Management

Leading a review of council-generated environmental rules to determine whether they support good stewardship or act as punitive green tape, and addressing the critical issue of bushfire risk and fuel load management.

Rural communities are the best stewards of their own land. Environmental rules that apply to rural Kingborough land are most credible when shaped by the people who live on that land day to day. Aldo will lead a review of council-generated environmental rules as part of the broader Environmental Services review in Priority 3. On bushfire risk: for at least 15 to 20 years, council's environmental regulations are alleged to have actively discouraged landholders from reducing fuel loads on their properties. The greatest single threat to Kingborough's biodiversity is a catastrophic bushfire. Aldo will review all environmental regulations for their impact on fuel load management, work directly with rural landholders on practical fuel reduction strategies, extend green waste collection arrangements in the lead up to fire season, hold Council land and road reserves to the same fuel management standard expected of ratepayers, allow burn registration flexibility for multiple or larger piles, and support biochar and other alternatives for landholders who cannot safely burn.

Infrastructure for a Growing Community

Developing a 10-year infrastructure plan aligned to population growth, prioritising road safety, and ensuring council project management failures like the Kingston bus interchange are never repeated.

Kingborough is one of Tasmania's fastest-growing municipalities. Roads, community facilities, and open spaces must keep pace with population growth. Every part of Kingborough, from Kingston to Snug, Margate, Woodbridge, and Bruny Island, deserves infrastructure maintained to a safe and functional standard. No community should be left behind. Aldo will develop a 10-year infrastructure plan aligned to population growth projections, prioritise road safety and traffic management in high-growth areas, advocate strongly to state and federal government for Kingborough's fair share of infrastructure funding, and introduce mandatory independent delivery oversight for all capital works projects above a defined threshold with public reporting milestones. Residents supplied their own infrastructure register when this priority was published, from sealing Summerleas Road to a safe crossing for Margate Primary, and it is published in full as the starting input to the 10-year plan consultation.

Bruny Island: Infrastructure and Funding Reform

Partnering with the Tasmanian Government, through the Premier’s office, on a joint funding solution for Bruny Island — investigating a tourist levy on ferry crossings for non-residents, with all revenue quarantined exclusively for Bruny Island infrastructure, and a formal cost-sharing framework for state roads.

Bruny Island is a unique and valued part of the Kingborough community, and the number one tourist destination in the south of Tasmania. Its residents deserve the same standard of infrastructure and road safety as the mainland municipality, yet the cost of maintaining the island is disproportionate to its small ratepayer base — making its infrastructure a matter of state significance, not a council responsibility alone. Aldo is progressing a joint venture between Kingborough Council and the Tasmanian Government, through the Premier’s office, to develop a funding solution together. Central to it is investigating the economics and feasibility of a tourist levy on ferry crossings for non-resident visitors, with revenue quarantined and used exclusively by Kingborough Council for Bruny Island infrastructure, so every dollar can only be spent on work that directly benefits the island, with full transparency and full public reporting. Aldo will also progress a formal cost-sharing framework with the State Government for state roads, engage new ferry operator Journey Beyond on levy collection, and work to secure fair compensation for essential workers who commute to the island, and for tradespeople based on Bruny who bear weekly ferry costs moving vehicles and equipment. The levy would fall on tourists and day trippers only: residents, non-resident and shack owners, tradespeople, essential workers and visiting family would all be exempt. The Kettering ferry queue backing onto the Channel Highway will be fixed alongside any levy, not after it. He has already begun these discussions with the State Government and Bruny Island community leaders, with an overwhelmingly positive response.

Direct Communication and Zoning Transparency

Ensuring residents never again discover that their property rights have changed through a third party or social media post, with mandatory written notification before any proposed zoning change is progressed.

The LCZ debacle exposed a systemic failure in how council communicates with affected landowners. That must never happen again. Aldo will introduce mandatory written notification to every affected household before any proposed zoning change is progressed, with a plain English explanation of what a proposed change means for the specific property and a genuine opportunity for the owner to respond before any decision is made. Council will maintain a public register of all proposed zoning changes and notification records, and Aldo will advocate for this standard to be embedded in state planning legislation.

Restoring Democratic Accountability and the Schedule 1 Test

Includes Opposing Federal Overreach on Biodiversity and Private Property Rights

Restoring the correct relationship between elected representatives, staff, and the community, and insisting that every planning report addresses all Schedule 1 objectives including social and economic wellbeing, not just environmental metrics.

Kingborough's departments have too often reversed the proper order of governance, with departments designing policy and councillors following it. That is not democracy. Elected councillors are the representatives of the community. Aldo will work with councillors and the CEO to restore the correct relationship, ensure councillors set direction and departments follow it, and require all planning reports to address all Schedule 1 objectives of LUPAA, including real-world impacts such as loss of finance access, unaffordable insurance, land devaluation, economic stagnation, and social harm. On federal overreach: Aldo will monitor and actively oppose any attempt to use federal biodiversity market mechanisms to impose additional offset obligations on Kingborough landowners, and will review Part 5 agreements under LUPAA as the existing local instrument of the same kind, so landowners can see plainly what they are committing to and for how long.

Community Engagement as a Prerequisite for Policy Making

Instituting mandatory community consultation before any land use policy, strategy, or bylaw is adopted, with direct engagement of affected landholders, rural residents, and relevant local industries.

A direct correlation exists between the absence of meaningful community engagement in Kingborough's land use policies over the past two decades and the volume of perverse outcomes those policies have produced. The Biodiversity Offset Policy, the LCZ nomination, and the Trees on Private Land Bylaw were all developed without genuine consultation with the communities most affected. Aldo will institute mandatory community consultation before any land use policy, strategy, or bylaw is adopted. Consultation must directly engage affected landholders, rural residents, and relevant local industries, not just subject matter experts. All consultation processes will be publicly reported, with responses and outcomes documented. Residents are not an afterthought in the governance process. They are the reason for it.

Sport, Recreation, and a Medical Services Precinct for Kingborough

Building on the Tasmania Devils AFL High Performance Centre and JackJumpers presence to attract medical, orthopaedic, and allied health businesses, and developing a Sport and Recreation Infrastructure Plan for the whole municipality.

The unanimous council approval of the Tasmania Devils AFL High Performance Centre at Twin Ovals in December 2025, alongside the ongoing JackJumpers presence, is a strong example of what is possible when leadership is constructive and forward-looking. Aldo will pursue a specific initiative to attract medical, orthopaedic, and allied health businesses to Kingborough on the back of the Devils and JackJumpers presence, investigating a dedicated area plan to make it easier for medical and allied health providers to establish here. Done well, this brings health services closer to where people live, draws industry and revenue into the local area, and positions Kingborough as the natural service centre for the south. Aldo will also develop a Sport and Recreation Infrastructure Plan, publish replacement timelines for the mountain bike park and the dog park with a site and a date, and publish the Centre’s community access arrangements in plain English. On a Kingborough pool, the facility residents raise more than any other, Aldo will not pre-empt Council’s coming position but will publish a full response with real numbers once it reports.

Community Safety and Anti-Social Behaviour

Making offenders clean up graffiti rather than the property owners who are its victims, backing owners with a Council removal service, and targeting hooning through better CCTV coverage and stronger partnerships with Tasmania Police, Crime Stoppers, and Neighbourhood Watch.

Graffiti, hooning, and burnouts are not major crime problems in Kingborough, but they are a persistent nuisance that degrades community amenity, damages property, and undermines residents’ sense of safety. Responsibility for cleaning up graffiti belongs with the offender, not the property owner who has already been victimised, so Aldo will pursue offender clean-up through police referrals and the courts, establish a Council-facilitated removal service so an owner who wants help gets help rather than a notice, apply anti-graffiti coatings to Council assets, and back mural and street art partnerships at the worst affected sites. On anti-social vehicle behaviour, Aldo will commission a CCTV coverage audit of high-incidence locations including the Twin Ovals precinct, develop a prioritised installation plan, and formalise a protocol with Tasmania Police for regular review of CCTV footage at hotspots — not solely in response to reported incidents. Aldo will also strengthen Council’s partnership with Crime Stoppers Tasmania and formally support and resource Neighbourhood Watch networks across Kingborough. These are solvable problems that require better coordination, clearer obligations, and more efficient use of existing tools.