It's not an easy task nominating just one amazing woman from among so many across the electorate for the annual Local Woman of the Year Award, because there are so many doing so much for our community.

This year one woman stood out however, having been actively involved in the community for almost half a century.

Janice Harris was more than a worthy recipient of the title of 2022 Orange Local Woman of the Year, having tirelessly and selflessly volunteered for the benefit of the community.

Janice is a very humble lady; when my office notified Janice of this much deserved accolade, her first response was to say that she couldn't accept it as there are much more deserving women in the community.

This speaks volumes of Janice's character, reinforcing her selfless and considerate nature.

Now a retired journalist, Janice is quite well known in Orange and surrounding communities and highly regarded among her peers and the community, in all of her capacities.

Janice has a deep and genuine care for her community, and has actively contributed with almost decades of voluntary service.

Janice's community involvement, roles and accomplishments include; founding member of Orange Theatre Company in 1975, serving as Publicity Officer for many years while also a member of the board for more than 20 years.

She has choreographed, directed or performed in 56 productions at Orange Civic Theatre during that time and was made a life member in 2007.

From 1982 to 1987 Janice was a Committee Member and President for the Orange Branch of the Children's Medical Research Foundation.

From 2015 to the present she has been a Foundation Member of Orange Push for Palliative, and is currently serving as Vice President and Publicity Officer.

In 2010 Janice was inducted into NSW Association of Community Theatre Hall of Fame.

From 2015 to the present she has been the Volunteer Media Officer and Fundraising Committee Member for Ronald McDonald House Charities in Orange.

From 2016 to 2019 Janice was a judge for the NSW Cancer Council Stars of Orange Dance for Cancer charity event.

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From 2016 to the present she has been a judge at the Canberra Area Theatre Awards.

From 2016 until now Janice has been a Committee Member and Publicity Officer for the City of Orange Eisteddfod.

From 2019 to now she has been the Creative Director for Pinnacle Players.

In 2020 Janice was a judge at the Canberra Ovations theatre awards.

Since last year, Janice has been a volunteer crisis supporter for Lifeline Central West, and she also volunteers to document end-of-life stories for palliative patients at the Orange hospital.

I was proud to accompany Janice to the 2022 NSW Women of the Year Awards breakfast event at the International Convention Centre in Darling Harbour, and present her with the award.

On behalf of an appreciative community, I thank Janice for her significant and ongoing contributions.

The NSW Government's decision to remove all signage from their mobile speed cameras was met with widespread criticism, and viewed as a step to increase revenue through fines rather than for reasons of safety.

This view has some validity when one considers a person caught speeding by one of the State's thousand plus covert mobile speed cameras sometimes doesn't receive the fine in the mail for up to a month, leaving driver behaviour to potentially continue.

In response to growing public and political pressure, on December 17 2021, the then-NSW Minister for Regional Transport and Roads Paul Toole announced that retractable double-sided signs would be installed on top of all mobile speed camera vehicles from February 2022.

Since the end of February, I've received reports from across the region that there's still mobile speed cameras operating without signage.

This has been brought to the attention of the new Minister Sam Farraway however, Mr Farraway has remained mute.

Don't get me wrong, if people do the wrong thing by driving in excess of the speed limit then there are clear consequences.

There's nothing like overt signage to cause a driver to check their speedometer, slow down and remain cognisant of the repercussions of speeding, but the Government's failed implementation of their promised signage is both evidence they don't keep their word and that they're relying on covert camera cars purely for revenue.

As I've said before, the NSW Government need to increase overt police presence on our roads and invest more into driver education to improve safety on our roadways.

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