My Priorities for Kingborough

Long Term Financial Planning and Asset Management Reform

Ending operating deficits, aligning the Long Term Financial Plan with the Strategic Asset Management Plan, and ensuring ratepayer money is spent with discipline and rigour.

Kingborough Council has run operating deficits in nine of the last ten 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.

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.

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, 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, and extend green waste collection arrangements to assist landholders in preparing properties for fire season.

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.

Bruny Island: Infrastructure and Funding Reform

Investigating a dedicated tourist levy on ferry crossings for non-residents, with all revenue quarantined exclusively for Bruny Island infrastructure, and progressing a formal cost-sharing framework with the State Government.

Bruny Island is a unique and valued part of the Kingborough community. Its residents deserve the same standard of infrastructure and road safety as the mainland municipality. Current funding arrangements have left Bruny Island underserved for too long. Aldo will investigate the economics and feasibility of a tourist levy on ferry crossings for non-resident visitors to Bruny Island, with revenue quarantined and used exclusively by Kingborough Council for Bruny Island infrastructure. Every dollar collected through the levy can only be spent on council work that directly benefits Bruny Island, with full transparency and full public reporting. Aldo has already begun socialising this idea with 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.

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 that maps current gaps and future needs across the municipality.