From the Desk of the CEO: August 2026
Published on 10 August 2026
The big news for us this month is that we will be welcoming Ms Audrey Deemal back to Hope Vale as our new Director of Social Services. Audrey has been away for some time working with Cape York Partnerships, but she has now seen the light and put her hand up to come and work with the greatest council in Queensland – Hope Vale!
Kerry-Lee Bird left us to return to the DSDIP department as her secondment from them came to an end. Kerry did some great work getting that division back on its feet and heading down the compliant path. It is now going to be handed to Audrey to take it to the next level. So, welcome Audrey, it’s great to have you on board with the rest of our fantastic team.
Also new to our ranks is Ms Pare Raupita, who has taken over as our Aged Care Manager. Pare is a highly experienced and qualified nurse who I am sure will now get our compliance issues up to scratch and get some functionality back into our aged care centre. Both staff and clients, I’m sure, will benefit greatly from having Pare here. Another warm welcome to Pare and her partner.
Litter
From a community point of view, let me convey my thanks to everyone who is making the effort to keep Hope Vale clean and tidy. Just taking a drive around the other day, the town is looking really great and there is very little litter to be seen anywhere. It just goes to show, when you are proud of your community, everyone chips in to help make our home look like it’s being cared for by everybody.
Horses
The other thing that I am sure everyone will be talking about is the removal of horses from the town area. This will take some time as we don’t intend to have a major muster, mainly because we don’t have the people or the resources to deal with that many horses. However, we can manage small groups of them at any one time. We also need to be aware of mixing up different stallion groups which could be problematic, so at this stage, steady as she goes with smaller groups. We caught three this week and thankfully they were identified by the owner and have now been removed from town by the owner and taken somewhere where they will be safe. This is exactly what we want. We are happy to round them up, but we want the owners to take responsible ownership of the horses and put them in fenced yards out of the town area. The horses will not be permitted to be kept in house yards and will need to be removed from town. Normanby Station is prepared to consider taking some of the horses that aren’t owned out to their property, but I am hoping other people will claim the majority of the animals and take them to a preferred property where they can be properly looked after. If we can achieve this, it will be a huge step forward for the safety and cleanliness of the town.
Council Meeting
The Council meeting for July was held in our Cairns office and proved to be very successful. The opportunity Council has in doing this is that we can spend the whole week, not just the discussion day and meeting day, interacting with other government departments, solicitors and other NGOs and advisory groups. It is a very worthwhile exercise for Council to be able to focus on the issues that are of the most import to Council, such as the housing development and town planning, the forward planning of Council projects and reviewing the current issues for each department.
The next Council meeting for August will again be held here in Hope Vale.
The discussion day agenda for this Council meeting is very full, with appointments taking up the day until 5pm. We will meet with Congress to discuss various issues, but mainly it is about keeping relationships alive and working together for the benefit of everyone. We are then meeting with the Department of Local Government to update councillor training on the new legislation. We will then work with DWATSIPM on the new Hope Vale Action Plan, which has been developed around the health and wellbeing of Hope Vale, followed by meeting with a number of government stakeholders and then with Orion Consulting to review our capital works that are currently underway.
Cemetery Records
This week will see the training of staff in our new cemetery recording software. This software will enable us to establish existing records of the cemetery, but it will also allow families to add information about their loved ones. At the time of burial, the passing will be registered into our system along with any certified information the family would like to include about the person. It means that you could add documents or photos, and then this information will be available to persons by accessing the information on our website if you so desire. Currently, we need to reconcile our electronic records with the sites on the ground at the cemetery so that we know which grave sites we can use, and some that aren’t suitable that can be marked as unusable. Once we have that, we will have a cemetery management system that will be equal to any others.
Census
The Census will require us to fill in a form about our personal data and statistics. This will happen on Tuesday night, 11th August 2026. It is critical that everyone participates in this project because Hope Vale’s future is based on the information we provide to the census data centre. It is confidential, and the provision of personal information is with your permission.
However, the reason it is important for you to fill in this form is that it is how the government knows where to spend its money for health, education, etc. It allows for future planning such as the supply of electricity as our town grows. It helps decide whether the government needs to provide better service facilities for kids such as bus services etc. and what the staffing levels at the clinic need to be. Council needs this information to grow the untied grants that we get to provide employment and better facilities. It helps us create capital growth and helps the community get the houses we need.
If you don’t fill in this form to represent your family, you and Hope Vale could miss out on future opportunities because they only do this every 5 years.
Lew Rojahn
CEO