Our political leaders could do so much in setting the tone and lobbying governments for support, but they were most impressed by how their constituents, us, responded in a variety of innovative ways to support each other and the community.

In Ballarat Unmasked, part three, our political leaders look at the big lessons they have learnt in a year like no other.

See part one, big lessons, here.

See part two, health lessons, here.

What a has a tough year like 2020 taught us about our city?

The community of Ballarat is strong and resilient. We are adaptable, innovative and have generous hearts. During the most challenging times of the pandemic, I was making phone calls across the community to check in on people and ask if they needed assistance and support.

Overwhelmingly, the people I spoke to accepted the restrictions and whilst they were missing spending time with loved ones and were finding remote learning and working from home challenging, they followed the rules and stayed safe. These efforts were rewarded, when regional Victoria was able to open up sooner and transition to a COVID normal.

What in your mind was the standout effort during 2020?

There are so many standout efforts across Ballarat during 2020. Ballarat's incredible response to the COVID pandemic is to be admired from teddy bears in windows to rainbows on footpaths, so many members of our community responded to the pandemic with generosity of spirit and optimism.

I wish to acknowledge our essential workforce who carried our community during the toughest of times. We have amazing healthcare workers who cared for the 59 people in our community who had COVID and stopped the spread in our region. As a result of their great work, we recorded zero deaths. Our healthcare workers are truly world class and deserve the highest praise and recognition.

Our local businesses are to be applauded for being resilient and innovative during the second challenging lockdown, especially hospitality and service industries. Their creativity and capacity to pivot to niche offerings to keep their businesses afloat was at times genius. During this time, Commerce Ballarat played an important role supporting local businesses and making strong representations to the Victorian government on their behalf.

I want to thank the Ballarat community for their efforts to reduce the spread of COVID-19 by following the rules and staying safe and thank them for all they have given up - birthdays and anniversaries that were not celebrated, weddings that were postponed or had very limited guests, funeral services that could not be attended, sporting and cultural events that were cancelled and everything else that we normally do.

Schools across Ballarat were also extraordinary during 2021. The way our principals and teachers transitioned to remote learning and supported their students was incredible. The adaptability and innovative approaches adopted to support children's learning at home to keep students engaged and connected was excellent.

Will Ballarat be a better place after the pandemic?

I am confident that Ballarat will bounce back stronger and better than ever before, if we support each other. We need to back our local businesses and shop locally this Christmas to bolster the local economy and support local jobs. The 2020 Victorian Budget was driven by the need to invest in our state in order to recover from the social and economic impacts of COVID. The Andrews Labor Government is investing $8 billion in regional Victoria, and Ballarat will certainly benefit from this in areas including social housing, schools, tourism, health care and digital connectivity.

What would you like to see retained from the pandemic and built on in 2021?

Our response to the pandemic has been positive in so many ways. I hope the advances we have made in flexible working arrangements can be retained.

I also hope that we can continue to stay connected through technology. As a result of the pandemic, my family now connects with family in the UK every week, something we didn't do prior to this. We no longer need to leave Ballarat to meet with people from across the state, nation and the world. Just last week at the Commerce Ballarat Biznet Breakfast, the guest speaker Abdullahi Alim, spoke to us from the World Economic Forum in Switzerland. With the advancements in technology, the world really is in reach to us. Most importantly, I hope that we continue to care for one another, looking out for each other, checking on our neighbours and vulnerable community members. The pandemic has certainly shown us that we are stronger.

What has a tough year like 2020 taught us about our city?

Throughout this year we have seen our community put their lives on hold to stop the spread of an infectious disease and protect others. It has been an extraordinary demonstration of the strength and selflessness of our community and communities all around Australia.

Through the first lockdown, I made a habit to call older members of our community.

On these calls I heard countless stories about the assistance these older and more vulnerable have received and what it has meant to them. I heard of the neighbours who stop by the front gate for a chat, who do the shopping, who offer a kind word, or just let them know that they are there to help, if they are needed.

We saw the same thing as families and households put teddy bears in their front windows, providing some small entertainment to children stuck at home and missing their friends.

We are seeing that same community spirit now as we re-emerge from lockdown and people once more pack local cafes, restaurants and shops, supporting our community and helping businesses get back on their feet.

This year has taught us how strong our community is.

What in your mind was the standout effort during 2020?

The standout effort has of course been healthcare workers along with support staff in hospitals and aged care centres.

Doctors, nurses, ambos, pharmacists and all other practitioners have done an amazing job under incredible pressure.

At the same time, we must thank the cooks, the cleaners, the admin staff and everyone else who keeps our hospitals, clinics and aged care facilities ticking over. Too often their work has gone unthanked and underappreciated. That can no longer be the case after the pandemic.

I also think our schools, teachers and every parent supporting our kids through home school have put in a huge effort this year. I think every one of us has a new appreciation of just how important education is and how important it has been to try and help our children through probably the toughest year they will experience.

Will Ballarat be a better place after the pandemic, how?

It is rare in life for entire communities - indeed the entire world - to share in events like we have this year.

It is an experience that none of us will ever forget.

I believe that the community spirit we have shown and the support we have offered each other, even when we could not physically be together, is something that will make our community even better over coming years.

What would you like to see retained from the pandemic and built on in 2021?

The pandemic has seen governments respond to events and support struggling Australians in ways that were never previously imaginable - including with wage subsidies and increased welfare payments.

It has also shown us the importance of members of our community that were previously underappreciated, such as cleaners, supermarket workers, aged care workers and truck drivers.

Even as we move past this crisis, I hope that we maintain the recognition of all those who keep our communities functioning and that governments at all levels remember that they have the ability and responsibility to support Australians when they are in need.

I hope we also keep the strong connection with our neighbourhoods and local business that really have been wonderful haven of support and care throughout this year.

What has a tough year like 2020 taught us about our city?

Ballarat has always had a very strong sense of community and the pandemic made this even stronger. We stepped in to help out and make sure our neighbours were doing okay. We understood that our communities are strong when everyone is doing well.

What in your mind was the standout effort during 2020?

Our health workers did an absolutely amazing job at keeping the community confident and calm. They kept our community safe and worked hard to ensure everyone who needed to, could be tested. Our teachers responded so quickly to be able to deliver learning online and still manage the kids who stayed at school and I know that every parent did a fantastic job of helping to home school their kids.

Will Ballarat be a better place after the pandemic, how?

Our community became stronger and more caring and I believe that the sense of connection will continue to grow in 2021. The pandemic brought an unprecedented response from the Victorian government which included big investments to create new jobs, millions to upgrade local schools, support regional tourism, $80 million for new social housing, $540 million to upgrade Ballarat Base Hospital and a new Ballarat Parent Centre, as just some examples. I look forward to 2021 to be a big year of delivery as building projects start creating hundreds of new jobs. We will see a new sense of optimism as large-scale projects such as GovHub open, bringing more than 600 new jobs to town.

What would you like to see retained from the pandemic and built on in 2021?

I hope we can take advantage of the new ways of communicating and keep the strong sense of community and connectedness we saw throughout 2020. Working from home and better access to services through telehealth or Zoom meetings really suit regional and rural lifestyles and give us all more time at home and with family and friends. I hope that we see more services finding ways to deliver online as this way they are often more visible and much easier to access. I would like to see employers continuing to support working from home where it is possible, as this can have real benefits for people's work/life balance.

In 2021 we should keep that sense of community alive and work together on making Ballarat an even better place to live.

What has a tough year like 2020 taught us about our city?

Ballarat has weathered the pandemic as well as any city in Victoria. This tells us much about the attitude and the care the people of Ballarat have for each other.

What in your mind was the standout effort during 2020?

I want to call out the "Be Kind" campaign - one that needs to continue. It is a simple request, but one that all too often gets forgotten when people are stressed or being asked to comply with regulations set by others but being enforced by often quite junior retail and hospitality staff.

Will Ballarat be a better place after the pandemic, how?

There will be much change around how we work and live in the coming years, as the pandemic has asked us to live our lives in different ways. There is a tremendous opportunity for a city like Ballarat to grow and thrive in the next few years. I'm looking forward to seeing that growth.

What would you like to see retained from the pandemic and built on in 2021?

Our recovery from the pandemic must start now, so every one of us needs to support our local communities and small businesses. For a lot of people, it will take a while to rebuild from this awful year. So we must build on our sense of community.

What has a tough year like 2020 taught us about our city?

As a community overall, we showed we're pretty resilient. We had some pretty tough job losses - about 6,000 in one month - but the community came together. The community really looked to apply the 'Be Kind' meaning. That motto seemed to go really the whole way through the pandemic in so many different areas, for example, when businesses started to open up, people would look to be kind in supporting local business.

What was the standout effort during 2020 for you?

I felt the community really came together when we were doing the food drop-offs. Individuals, groups and organisations were donating money and items of food and there was this overwhelming sense of giving - even when it might have been tough for them too.

The university students were a bit of an unknown. A need for help almost came out of the blue because a lot of students not living on campus needed support and could not get home.

It was about community coming together. It was about people who could support others doing so. It was so enlightening to see so many people giving to help others.

Will Ballarat be a better place after the pandemic, and how so?

We know Ballarat does support well in the 3BA Christmas Appeal and other community appeals. We still need people to continue on looking after themselves, their friends and family even if it's keeping up a 'hey, how's it going' to check in on each other.

We need to be a caring city and thoughtful city but I also think that's ingrained in us in Ballarat.

We need to keep trying to do what we can to help. It's important to do that.

What would you like to see retained from the pandemic and built on in 2021?

Looking out for each other. Fingers crossed we never have to do a pandemic like this again, at least for decades. Hopefully now is not the norm, hopefully now we can get back to business, hopefully now we can get back to socialising and hopefully now we can get back to our sport.

All these are important for mental health.

A lot of people were isolated in lockdowns. Now is the time to be supporting them and getting them involved and connected with community once more.

Restrictions have eased, but a lot of people will still be hurting for a long time.

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