Building the future: interview with Mary Agostino, Mitchell Shire Council CEO

As part of our new interview series for Future Local Lab, we interviewed Mary Agostino, the newly appointed CEO of Mitchell Shire Council and one of our top 25 thinkers, about her extensive experience supporting Melbourne’s growth corridors. Mary’s insights on local government leadership and building resilient communities are a must-read/watch/listen. Learn from a visionary leader dedicated to shaping a sustainable future.

Mary Agostino is one of LGIU’s top 25 thinkers in local government. Make sure you check out the rest of the list.

Watch the full conversation on Youtube here.

1:49 Mary Agostino’s journey into local government
4:07 Leadership during crises: bushfires and covid-19
7:35 Planning for the future
14:21 Building resilient communities in growth areas
18:20 Balancing the needs of established and emerging communities
19:57 Championing growth and self-determined communities
26:56 Advocating community needs for long-term growth
32:57 Future challenges for local government leaders

Watch/listen to the full conversation on Spotify here.

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Looking for just the highlights? A written version of the interview has been edited down into a Q&A format, which you can read below.

Tell us a bit about your journey in local government, where your interest in the sector began and how you sort of began your career?

It’s an interesting story for me because I worked in banking prior to local government. Then I had my daughter and I didn’t want to go back to working in the main city of Melbourne, Victoria. A friend of mine worked in local government and she said, ‘Why don’t you come and work with us?’ There was a job as a cashier and I worked in banking, so I said I’d do it. It was part-time, which suited me, and so I started off as the cashier in local government.

From there, I realised there was a world of opportunity in local government. Then I thought, I really love Community Services, people from there do really cool things. They’re out with the community. They’re talking to them. So, from being the cashier, I went into an admin function in Community Services – and I loved it. I loved every moment of it. I started off in Early Years and then I just kept progressing through local government, looking at things that really interested me. I also used to shadow people a lot.

Later in my career, I moved into advocacy as a General Manager of Advocacy. I started by shadowing one of the Directors. He was very generous – I think there’s a real generosity in local government. There are also 100 careers, so you can pick and choose what interests you. I always tell anyone coming in who’s new to look around; look around and don’t be stuck where you are. See what interests you and who you can learn from.

Finally, growth areas. I love growth areas. Growth areas are never dull. You have to plan. The year 2050 in planning terms, is today. So, how you plan for communities, how you build that resilience through good planning is of major interest to me. That’s what’s led me to Mitchell Shire and its growth agenda.

Reflecting on your experience in local government, for example, your recognition for outstanding leadership during the bushfire and COVID-19 crisis. How have these challenges sort of shaped your approach to leadership?

In that period, I remember my CEO, at the time, David Turnbull – probably one of the best CEOs I’ve ever worked with – he got sick. He had an illness and he had to take some time off. As he took that time off, he asked me to go in as Acting CEO and I really fought against it. It was never a path that I wanted at that point. He said, ‘Look, I really want you to lead the organisation at the moment’, and I remember COVID breaking out as I entered into that role.

With COVID breaking out, there was this immediate logic to how you had to behave and what you had to do. It was an unknown thing. Working from home wasn’t a thing back then, so our IT department just kicked in straight away and set us up at home as well. It’s funny how a paradigm shift can happen so quickly and how people can respond so fast. During that time, the CEO progressively got more ill and we had fires break out in Victoria at the same time. Some of our team went up to help those fire-affected communities. We had COVID, a sick CEO, fires in Victoria that we assisted with, it was just this really interesting time.

During that little period, the State Government generously gave us money to put towards people who were unemployed because of COVID. So we hired 74 new staff. We did a whole lot of fantastic work. Then the Victorian Government told me they were going to recognise me for it.

It was a period when people really rallied together, and I love that strength of leadership, but it was at all levels in the organisation and in the community as well. So the community were helping each other – supporting each other. Our service system changed to help people who were vulnerable, who couldn’t get to a library or couldn’t get food. It was just this really incredible time, with all these lessons taken into new service delivery models, like how we work at home and how we run our lives. There were so many learnings, and for me personally as a leader, many learnings on what I was able to achieve. So that’s the story of that period and why the state government recognised me.

On the day, I was standing there, being honoured with these 20 other women. One woman from Melbourne University had cracked a code on how to pick fraud and money laundering worldwide. She had cracked a code that banks worldwide use. I was standing there going, ‘Why am I in her company? She’s amazing!’ And she said to me, ‘What’s your story?’ I told her and I thought my story isn’t that remarkable, but I found the presence of these women amazing.

Do you find that going through those tough times has helped your approach now, to get ahead, to plan and forward look?

Yeah, with decision-making in a crisis, you have to remain calm. Any hysteria, people will react with you. I am a very outgoing person and there was this real, lovely calmness, but I was also surrounded by a team that I really maximised. We had an officer who analysed risk and she did a lot of work around the risks and the risks to staff. Our health and safety team, our executive team and our managers all rallied, and I lent on them to share their expertise in their fields and made decisions based on the best knowledge. Most decisions you make as a leader, or in any role, you know what your boundaries are, you know what’s possible. But we pushed outside all those local government boundaries. We explored what we could do. We met almost daily as a team, so there was a lot of communication and it was efficient. The decision-making was about very practical things day-to-day. It wasn’t long-term planning, it was; How are we going to do the next week? How are we going to do the next month? What if this progressed? Plus, we did a bit of scenario planning as well. So, relying on others and leaning on expertise, you make informed and good decisions. And they don’t need to be laboured.

Looking towards the future, what key goals are you working on for Mitchell Shire Council? How are you setting that path right now to achieve those goals?

I’ve been working on Mitchell Shire Council from the day I walked in. There are a lot of great examples of good growth and bad growth decisions. For Mitchell Shire Council, when they move into a brand new suburb, it’s not going to be the panacea of everything you need in life, but some basic things need to be there. My whole goal is about having some of those basic things in a new community.

For Mitchell Shire, I’m ambitious for the community that isn’t there yet. But I’m also ambitious for the community that is there because we’ve got this fantastic community that’s been there for generations, so I’m not losing focus on them. In terms of growth, I started off this session saying ‘2050 is today in planning terms’, so one of the things that we’ve embedded is service planning. We’ve planned out the next 30 years based on a range of assumptions, how many households we will have – 3.1 people per household – and the needs of those households. Other principles are to have some basic things when those communities move in.

I’m really proud to say, and I know you don’t have context for this, but we’ve got a major freeway called the Hume Freeway that takes people from one state to the other. Our community sits on both sides of this major freeway. One thing we’ve done is we’ve planned out all the interchanges onto that freeway. I’m really happy to say they’ve all been funded – though they haven’t been delivered yet. I know that might sound really trite, but it gets people to jobs. It gets people to the supermarket. It gets people moving up and down the corridor. So that’s one element. Jobs, jobs, jobs. A goal of one job per household, having transport, hubs, and mental health and family violence services, is what we fight for and plan for. So long-term planning and short, sharp advocacy funding, getting funding for projects, they’re really important.

How people live is really important to me and our team at Mitchell Shire, and learning. Unfortunately, we don’t always learn from the mistakes of the past. There are some really huge growth areas that already have populations of 300,000, but some of their basic services still aren’t there. I’m trying not to repeat some of those errors of the past. I’m constantly trying to get things in early. What you don’t want to be doing is retrofitting these communities in 20-30 years. The more we focus on them and getting them right, there will be a lot less pressure on the community and government in 20-30 years. I know it’s a very long, long explanation, but it’s about getting it right now for 30 years from now, being the voice of the communities that aren’t there.

I’ll give you a great example, right now we’ve got a brand new community in Beveridge. People have built homes in this area and the government has said that if you’ve got anything under the ground, it has to come out to support growth, building houses. We’re not anti-quarry at Mitchell Shire, but the government, in its wisdom, has said, we’re going to put a quarry right in the middle of this brand new suburb. So sometimes you’ve got to challenge. You can have an extractive industry policy – that’s not a problem – but don’t retrofit it into where people have bought their homes already. Sometimes you’ve got to push government. We’re pushing hard on this one to say, not on. It’s two land uses that are totally opposed to each other and people have bought homes on the premise that there will be no quarry there. You’ve got to challenge government for good outcomes for community.

Given your extensive experience working in Melbourne’s growth corridors, what strategies have you found most effective for building resilient communities in rapidly growing areas?

It’s a real formula. People come into these communities often without any support services. You’ve often got families, young families, no grandparents, no childcare and sometimes with only one vehicle to support a family. Who’s gonna get that vehicle? The prime money earner who’s gotta get out and go to employment. So often you get some real vulnerability and women isolated. In some of our communities, we’ve got a lot of South Asian community members moving in, and often they have their parents moving in as well to support them with childcare and other matters. They don’t have any support systems either. So you’ve got, sometimes the parents, sometimes the grandparents, and isolation and lack of transport options. Creating resilience is about having some basic elements there from the day our community moves in, e.g. a service hub. In one of our new areas, we’ve got this fantastic hub coordinated there. In the corner are all these men sitting there having a coffee, playing cards, just chit-chatting. We’ve got multicultural play groups. We’ve got kinder services. That hub creates a link for community to community. We’ve got a little mini library service, we’ve got children’s activities. Having some basic services, makes sure community are connected to each other.

The other day, I caught a lady from India talking to a gentleman from India. She had just moved into this suburb and she said, ‘When does it get better?’ My heart broke for her. I was eavesdropping, in a nice way, I heard her and I felt her pain. He said it takes five years to adjust, and I thought five years, this poor woman. I could see her. Then I saw she lifted because he told her some of the things that she could do. He gave her instruction to get her little kids involved in things and meet the other parents. It was really good advice.

Creating those connections for that community and having some base services. What we’ve got at Mitchell Shire is we’ve got a high level of family violence rates. That’s a gender equity issue, but some of those contributing factors are very real. There’s financial stress, we’ve got the mortgage belt, we’ve got the lack of services and that’s also where we’re pushing government to say you need some basic level of service here as well from day one. And from a local government perspective, just making sure you plan in and have a priority around some piece of infrastructure that connects community from day one.

What advice would give to local leaders when it comes to balancing the needs of both established and emerging communities?

Yeah, look, don’t neglect anyone and explain the story. We’ve got fantastic communities right up and down our corridor. Some are rural communities, and now and then I hear, ‘Oh, they’re getting everything in the south’ – which is where the growth is – and the other guys go, ‘Oh, everything is being done up north.’ So it’s explaining a story to everyone about who’s getting what and why. You explain to those more established communities, and you say, they’ve got nothing down south and we collect developer contributions from developers so we can build some of this infrastructure. People don’t often know that. You have to explain things and educate the community. Once you do, people get it. People want other people to succeed. I believe in the good of community and those other communities they’ve got needs too.

We had this fantastic community panel recently. We’ve got a new Council and they’re writing the new Council Plan. We invited 40 community members, different ages, different cohorts, right across the municipality, and those 40 community members said, ‘Wow, we now get why Council is so challenged in trying to balance everything and they prioritise for us.’ It was a fantastic exercise. I think communities, they also have their own solutions on how you tackle problems. I think drawing on them often helps.

Is there a particular initiative you’ve championed in either a growth corridor or in creating a more self-determined community, which you’re most proud of?

I think one of my professional highs was working with our First Nations people when I worked at the City of Whittlesea. They came to Council and they said, ‘We want you to think about us in the context of all the work you’re doing’. I was pretty ashamed. Not that they shamed me, but I felt ashamed that I wasn’t on top of some of the challenges. Our First Nation children were experiencing challenges. I knew it from a data perspective and the statistics, and that the outcomes for children weren’t as great. I met the community and they threw out that gauntlet and said, ‘We want to work with you and childcare, and our children are our number one priority.’ I thought, all right, I can tackle that. We had this old kindergarten. It was old and it was pretty ordinary, but in a really good suburb and location. I said we’ve got this old kinder and we’ve got $40,000 from the state government. We polished it up, and we worked with the community to get this up and going. They said to me, the governance model will be that only Aboriginal people sit on the board and run the kinder. They really pushed and challenged me. They said to me these wise words, ‘Mary, if you get it right for us, you’ll get it right for any community. The principles will be the same.’

The kids had to be Aboriginal, the board had to be Aboriginal and the community were working towards Aboriginal employment in that kinder. They set all the parameters. The federal government went, ‘Hey, we’re gonna roll out 38 new centres across Australia and we’re gonna fund a brand new centre for you guys.’ We thought, great, this is fantastic. The community said to me, ‘Don’t think that’s your money. ’ We got funded for one in Whittlesea and they said, ‘It’s not your money. This is Aboriginal money and we’ll tell you how you’re gonna spend it.’

I remember my CEO at the time, I told him they wanted a piece of land, and he goes, ‘Just tell them yes, don’t worry about it, we’ll find it.’ I thought, that’s leadership in local government. We found a piece of land in front of our recreation centre library, next to the station, near the main strip of shops. It was gold, but we had to run it by councillors at the time. We took it to them and said I remember my CEO, who just made my jaw drop, said, ‘Councillors, this is in the greater good.’ In that moment, the councillors supported that project. We built this brand new, beautiful, sparkly centre. The community were involved in almost every nail of that wall.

They got the governance model 12 years on. The kids that are coming out of that centre are really doing well. Children are staying in with their families. It’s a cultural program respecting Aboriginal culture. The outcomes of that project, to this day, make me proud. I’m still involved with them, even if I don’t work in that municipality anymore. So I’m very proud.

So that’s one. Another one is in the City of Whittlesea – a brand new growth area – they needed a new rail line. Getting a rail line is really hard work, this was in 2012 and that rail line wasn’t gonna come on till 2036. The community came to me again, they said, ‘Can Council help us get this rail line?’ I said ok, it wasn’t the number one priority, but I thought, let’s go for it, we’re never going to get an opportunity like that again. So the community, the local paper and Council buddied up together, and we ran a campaign for eight months. We had a story in that paper for eight months. At the end of the eight months, we got it funded. It was on deck, I think, four years later. It took a million car trips off the main road in a year. Community can drive change.

Is there any core advice you would give to other leaders from your experience with those initiatives?

Don’t assume you know what community want. You talk to community. You get them involved. They can be the champions. There’s nothing more boring than local government going on their own to a Minister. It’s white noise sometimes. One of the most powerful moments I’ve seen was a young man, from where I work now, talking to the Minister for Health. We took him into the city and he spoke. Normally, a minister will shove you out of the door after 20 minutes, we were there for an hour or so and this young man secured money for us. We created a space for youth mental health services and it was on the back of that voice. So, listen to community, harness them, work with them and value them. You don’t have to do it on your own.

Reflecting on your successes in securing investment for infrastructure projects, how can local government leaders better advocate for their community needs and secure necessary resources for long-term growth?

Don’t have a big shopping list. Pick the top 10 most important things for that community. Find partners – who can you partner with? Don’t do it on your own. I partner with everyone. The not-for-profit sector, the business sector, usually they’re standing with me somewhere. Partner, partner, partner, don’t do it on your own. Use other people’s resources, let them use yours.

Do you have any advice on how you cultivate those partnerships and ensure they are strong and result in a good outcome?

Yes. Tell them the reality. It doesn’t have to be a win-win, 50-50, it can be a 70-30. I partner sometimes with authorities that haven’t got a voice because they can’t push against government. But I’ve got a voice and local government’s got a voice, so sometimes, we can benefit some of their outcomes. I partner with the not-for-profit sector. They often don’t have capital, but I’m building 20 new hubs in the next 30 years I can build additional consultation rooms. I’ve got capital. We partner for the benefit of the community. And often people want to work with you.

I’ll give you a really great example. Recently, we wanted to build a major sports facility and a partnership with another government, a foreign government. So we want to bring in this investment. They’re fantastic developers. They’re high quality. Obviously, their outcome is to get communities buying their property, but they also have a reputation of creating something really livable. They’ve got some skill, we’ve got some skill. There’s some real benefit. You just gotta be honest in the partnership and if something’s not right, you say it. It’s heads of agreement. Build solid foundations. If I left Mitchell tomorrow there’s a heads of agreement that ties the partnership as well. So, having a formality around it.

I’ll give you another quick example. There’s an organisation called Kids First, it used to be called Child Protection Society, I worked with them at the City of Whittlesea and now they’re working with me here. They went to government around a pilot and brought in $2m over two years to work with our community to build resilience and ensure children didn’t get into the system. So they’re partnerships, they’re real and they can benefit communities.

Looking at the evolving relationships with the local government sector and their partners, how do you see that playing out into the future? Do you think that will change? Will they become more prominent?

For me, they’re critical. Partnerships are absolutely critical. We’re cash-strapped, so we get developer contributions, particularly in the growth areas, but they only cover 25% of the costs. You’ve got to look a bit more outside the square on how you generate revenue. Partnerships can bring in that help with infrastructure. I value them and I think that we can only achieve outcomes together for community. I can’t see local government just doing it on its own forever.

Partnerships are also with government. Our state and federal government are key partners in understanding what our priorities are. When there’s grants, how do they shape to support us. So government, not-for-profits, business sector, developers, everyone. Local government is not an island, it has to work with others.

How do you see the role of ocal government evolving in the future? Do you think its approach will change?

I think with local government still have to remain very relevant to their own communities – what is it they want to achieve? Councillors capture that in what’s called our Council Plan. One thing our councillors, I’ve heard from the sector at the moment, is do the basics right, get the basics right. Local government must do that.

Our councillors, in writing their Council Plan, we’ve sat with them and we’ve presented some health and human services data as well because we’re incorporating a health and wellbeing plan into our Council Plan. Legislation says we have to do both, but we’ve said to Council, let’s do it together. When we took them through some of our local data, they said we must have a focus on family violence and mental health. I was very proud of them, they responded to the local health needs of the community. I think there’s this real thing about waste, and the parks and gardens presentation, and they’re all absolutely important. They make people feel really good about where they live. But then also let’s support community. Whatever that looks like, is it advocacy, is it through delivery of services? Every local government must respond to the needs of their community and what their data is telling them. I think that’s the role of local government. You can’t be all things to all people, but identify what you do. I’ve always held the view, wherever I’ve worked, we’re generalists. We do all those generalist services, but the other layers have to do the early intervention and tertiary services. So, that’s where we play an advocacy role. Identifying what your role is, is really critical as well. And you know what? I realise how important we are to community whenever there’s a crisis, we’re the first ones called in.

From your experience as an accomplished leader, what key trends or challenges do you foresee for local government leaders specifically and how can they proactively start addressing them now?

I think local government is a real platform for doing things differently. So leaders must think outside the norms of previous local government. Look at financial sustainability, in line with working with what I said previously, partners – working with others.  Where are you investing your money? Having a long-term financial plan that actually has your service planning in there, your workforce planning in there, your capital works program. Looking at shared resources with other local governments and procurement together. How can you minimise those costs? And what’s really fantastic to do versus what you have to do? Looking at the leadership. The executive leadership must look at the organisation as a whole, all parts together. That makes a fantastic team.

Then you always respond to the Council Plan. So, you know, the councils want to achieve what they want to achieve in four years and we always say, you’re part of a journey, a longer journey, so what is it? What’s that slice that’s going to make it better for communities. I think they’re really important elements. Plus, being agile – challenging. You’ve got to create discomfort in an organisation. Move them to thinking a bit differently. I’ve got fantastic managers at Mitchell and they work with me on some of these because I do poke the bear sometimes.

I know this is going to sound counterintuitive to what you’ve asked me, but I love using an audit and risk committee because sometimes when you do an internal audit, someone else’s eyes see something and you go, yeah, we could be doing that a bit differently. Being flexible, looking at the world very differently, partnering and working together as a team with your councillors

What advice would you give to aspiring and current leaders looking to make a significant impact in their communities?

Don’t make it about yourself. If you stay on track and it’s always about the community, you’ll be the best leader in the world. When you focus just on your career and on your next step, forget it. If you do things well, you’ll get to the next step. Let your work speak for you.

This interview is part of LGIU’s new Future Local Lab – a holistic programme of resources aimed at helping you to prepare for and respond to the emerging challenges facing local government everywhere. It’s open to everyone, make sure you’re signed up today.