Championing the Voice of the Community

Coming in guns blazing, the Labor Party are bringing a competitive mayoral candidate to the Hornsby Shire. 

Her name is Janelle McIntosh. 

A three-term councillor, first elected to Hornsby Council in 2004, Janelle has a wealth of experience in public matters and community affairs. 

Disenfranchised with the lacklustre performance of Council in the early 2000s, Janelle put her hand up for the position, bringing her expertise learnt working as a consultant in other Sydney councils.

‘I had seen what [Hornsby] Council were doing,’ explains Janelle. ‘More importantly, I could see what our Council wasn’t doing. I thought I could bring something to the table.’ 

Quickly assuming the councillor role for Hornsby in 2004, Janelle made large strides, initiating the position of an arts officer, and getting an economic development strategy implemented. 

At her first Council meeting, Janelle moved a motion to have the Indigenous custodians of the land acknowledged at the start of every formal gathering of Council. It was unanimously passed. 

‘This year, it is twenty years that Hornsby Council have been acknowledging the traditional owners of the land at which we meet,’ says Janelle. ‘We have that acknowledgment of the Darug and Guringai people, and I’m really proud of that.’

With a seemingly methodical baton passing between Liberal mayors and deputy mayors, Janelle maintains that Hornsby residents deserve to know who their mayor is, what their values are, and have a track record of work in the community. 

‘Over the three terms that I’ve spent on Council, people have got a pretty good idea about who I am and what I stand for,’ says Janelle, going on to talk about why she is a member of the Labor Party. ‘I have seen the great things that Labor governments can do… Focused on community, focused on family, focused on housing, focused on workers’ rights, equity for everybody. I like people to know that I will stand up for fairness and equity.’ 

Her passions centre around the arts and broadcasting. A life member of the Hornsby Art Society, Janelle was President of the organisation for ten years and remains actively involved. She is the current Company Secretary for community radio station, Triple H, and founder of the Facebook group Creative Hornsby. 

Hot on Janelle’s agenda once becoming mayor are seeing the Hornsby Town Centre Masterplan progress, responding to the community needs for affordable housing, developing the large site on Johnson Road in Galston to suit both community and commercial interests, getting the River, Dangar Island and Brooklyn communities together to solve concerns around Brooklyn parking, and developing Westleigh as a sport and recreation complex, despite the state government pulling funding. 

‘If funding falls apart, we need to find a Plan B,’ says Janelle. ‘We’re a council, we have to find another grant, another way to meet the community’s expectations. That’s what a mayor does. A mayor finds another way.’ 

Another community issue Janelle seeks to address is healthy aging.  ‘We have 20% larger than the Sydney average of older people living in our local area. We have an aging population,’ explains Janelle. ‘We have huge rates of dementia. Dementia is the leading cause of death for women. Not heart attack, not breast cancer, not anything else. It’s dementia.’

For six years, Janelle has been passionately working on dementia related initiatives, and with relevant organisations and individuals. She is a member of the local Dementia Alliance and the Northern Sydney Dementia Collaborative, liaising with them to promote and run public information workshops. Through her efforts to have Hornsby recognised as a dementia friendly community, Dementia Australia recently awarded Hornsby with the tick of approval. 

Janelle sees the need to focus on young people in our Shire. ‘In focusing upon ageing, the community has reminded me that we must also focus on the younger generation… running activities and events that provide for families and young people, and providing opportunities for young people to become involved in council decision-making.’

For Janelle, mayors must embody key attributes: they must be respectful, responsible, and be collaborative. They must lead a diverse team with differing opinions, focusing on the wellbeing on the community. Above all, the mayor should be accessible to the public, so that issues facing Hornsby may be solved through community consultation and engagement forums.

‘I’ve sat in the library branches quite regularly and undertaken councillor catch ups. Why can’t we do mayoral catch ups?’ proposes Janelle. ‘Sit where customer service is in the library, and let people come up and tell you things, discuss things. Ask me anything.’

Notably, Hornsby Shire Council has only ever had one female mayor with Nan Horne in 1990 and has not seen a female deputy mayor since 2007 with Felicity Findlay. Janelle served with Nan during her first term. 

‘It was my great privilege to serve on Council with her. What an honour it would be if I was the next female mayor after her. She is wonderful. She taught everybody a lot,’ praises Janelle. ‘It’s important because females make up more than half our community. Residents need to be able to see themselves represented, and young people need to see both men and women in positions of leadership.’

Along with her mayoral candidacy, Janelle McIntosh is running a ticket for councillor in Ward B.