General News
21 July, 2026
Fresh face to run for Mayor
HE only moved to the region 10 years ago, but Mark Norvall believes he has what it takes to be the next Tablelands Mayor.
The Butchers Creek resident has announced he will contest the Tablelands Regional Council Mayoral by-election, alongside Crs Dave Bilney and Kev Cardew.
A date for the by-election is yet to be announced and whether any more candidates will contest the poll is unknown at this stage.
Mr Norvall believes he can offer a fresh approach for the council which has been heavily criticised over the past two years, reflected in a recent community survey in which nearly 80% of people said they were dissatisfied with the organisation.
“My focus is simple – to bring back people focused, open local government,” he said.
“I hear many issues raised by locals like roads, costs, public buildings, security and unpopular developments to mention a few.
“I’m aware that you can’t keep everyone happy all the time and believe that real consultation, communication and engagement is what will get you the closest to having the public and council on the same side.”
Born in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Mr Norvall immigrated to Australia 30 years ago with his wife and two daughters and visited the Tablelands area during a trip around the country, but ended up living near Sydney for a few years to enable his wife to get cancer treatment before she passed in 1997.
He then spent a lot of time in the Riverina area of New South Wales but once his two daughters finished school, he was able to make a decision to move north and has operated his own agricultural consulting business since then.
“I’ve slowed down my consulting work, it’s just me on the farm now, and with all the complaining I’ve heard about the council, I thought I will put my hand up – I’m fresh blood and see if I can’t make a change,” the 66-year-old agronomist said.
“There’s a lot of negativity around and I think the biggest problem is that the council doesn’t talk with people anymore – they don’t govern for the people, they just do it and expect people to swallow it.
“You’ve got to take people with you and involve them in the process.”
While Mr Norvall has no local government experience, he says “it’s not rocket science”.
He had had “a lot to do” with councils in NSW, had completed the State-required training to be a councillor or Mayor, and had managerial experience with companies with 200 employees and multi-million dollar budgets.
Mr Norvall said the biggest issue he could see was that Tablelands Regional Council was not on the “same page” as the community.
“We need to get people together, tell them why we are doing this and explain it – don’t just chuck it front of people as a fait accompli or try to hide stuff from them because that just causes trouble down the track and it grows and grows into a beast of its own,” he said.
Mr Norvall believes a way to connect with the community is to reinstate some of the advisory committees that were abolished last year, especially one that would connect with the agricultural industry.
“Farmers feel like they are cash cows – they pay out big amounts of money for rates so the council needs to give them more value for their rates like improving their roads for a start because some of them can’t even move their cattle because it rained yesterday,” he said.
“There is really only one aim to this and that’s to make an already wonderful place an even better place to live. To achieve this, we can only do so if we’re all going in the same direction.”
