Getting your key message out in the Communication Age is a job at which Orange Council can do better, Council candidate Dr Steve Peterson believes.

One of Orange City Life’s most- high-profile “Mock Councillors”, Dr Peterson has always embraced leadership responsibilities and argues that he can bring a unique perspective to Orange City Council.

Top of the “Refresh Orange”  ticket for September’s poll, he says that his unique background mix — a medical doctor who spent part of his childhood in Beijing and who is now wheelchair-bound after a car-bycycle collision three years ago —  offers the “diversity” that so many bemoan as lacking in the current Council.

“I thought, 'being 35 years old with young children, a professional background and serious disability is an odd mix of  perspectives that I can offer’,” he added.

Dr Peterson still works as a GP providing invaluable online consultancies to small rural hospitals like Molong and Cobar through the “Virtual Rural Generalist Service" and "Remote GP" Service.

“It works surprisingly well; the majority of all but the most-serous cases, we can manage remotely, because some of these towns simply can’t get doctors 24/7 and this assists local staff,” the Australian National University-trained GP explained.

Like many Army children — he spent his growing years following his father’s senior military career starting at Hong Kong where he was born and then later some time at Beijing, China for high school.

He also lived for a time at rural army bases including Canungra (Queensland) and Queenscliff (Victoria) and so it seemed natural for he and his wife Deborah, also a doctor, to look to the bush when they graduated.

“As soon as we finished medical school, we took work in country areas like Cairns, Innisfail, Mareeba, Darwin, the Kimberley, we never really lived and worked in big cities,” he explained.

So, when Deborah wanted to return home for their first child and to work with the Orange Aboriginal Health Service, he jumped at the chance. It was here that his natural willingness to pitch-in attracted him to a role with Council.

“I suppose being involved in a community is a concept I’m comfortable with… I’ve always been a joiner,” he said. “I was president of the student society for my medical school, organising events and the like.

“I was also a Scout Youth Member, Queen Scout and Leader for 15 years. That type of role encourages you to plan things and make them happen. You have to do it yourself and that gives you self-confidence,” he explained.

With an eye to elected office at one time or another, it was one of those inexplicable acts of fate that intervened in his life.

“I always thought it was something that I might do, but three years ago I was hit by a car and became a quadriplegic,” Dr Peterson explained.

This eventuality though has not dimmed his interest in elected office, and he has been testing the waters as one of Orange City Life’s Mock Councillors, a concept developed by publisher, Bob Holland to provide an alternative view on local government decisions in the Colour City.

Unlike many others in the shadow council, he is mostly-supportive of the current councillors who come up for re-election in September.

“My view is that people elected to these roles generally try to do the right thing; some things they do well, others not so well. The question is, will the next Council avoid these mistakes?”

He believes that communication failures let down the current Council. “One of these communication pitfalls were the trees in Anson St (which had been proposed by Council to be removed for a pedestrian mall).”

“There was obviously  a lot of planning and effort to create a plan for this proposal, but the residents were not taken with it, better communication could have saved a lot of this,” Dr Peterson said of the strong public opposition to the proposal.

“A lot of people don’t understand what Council does and how their money is spent, better communication would take a lot of heat off them,” he said.

Dr Peterson believes that the ways of the past no longer work in the Communication Age: “There’s so many ways of communicating, it’s no longer a piece of paper on a noticeboard, you need to do better than that.”

Her intends running only as a councillor for his first term and believes that local government reps need at least two terms before they put their hand-up for the mayoral robes.

“I think you need to know how the process works before you look further, I’ll be running on an integrity point of view… honesty and openness,” Dr Peterson concluded.