General News
30 October, 2025
Rani’s dedication leads to huge honour
Rani Diggs, recipient of Gilgandra’s Young Achiever Award at the 2025 Ministers’ Awards for Women in Local Government.
“Rani has progressed to being a highly capable road grader operator, supervising a team of long-term, experienced male colleagues. As the team leader, Rani is responsible for coordinating team members, liaising with local landholders and local contractors to deliver a highly valued service of road maintenance. A responsibility she handles with maturity and confidence,” Daryl Colwell said.
Rural roads coordinator, Ashley Hazelton, said Rani’s outstanding quality of work is widely recognised. “Her quality of work is outstanding - we frequently receive compliments from landowners on the exceptional standard of her work,” Ashley said. “Rani has become an invaluable member of the team.”
Mayor Doug Batten said Rani had already established herself as a role model. “Rani’s achievements reflect her resilience, skill, and pride in her work,” he said.
“Eight-years-ago, council embarked on a journey to provide more roles to help develop and retain youth in our community, and Rani is a beneficiary of this program,” said Gilgandra’s mayor Doug Batten.
David Neeves said council’s workforce management strategy has a strong emphasis on providing opportunity for local youth and career development, and “Rani is the perfect example of the intent of such strategy”.
“When we look at ways to enable opportunities for the youth to gain careers in local government, particularly by creating traineeship and apprenticeship pathways, it is extremely rewarding to see a young lady like Rani not only embrace the opportunity but thrive in the role. It is extremely rewarding for the council. We are proud of the pathways council creates and even more proud to see a young lady flourish in a civil industry that is road construction and road maintenance.
“Council has implemented numerous traineeships and apprenticeship roles across the breadth of the organisation, with over 10 per cent of council’s workforce on a formal traineeship or apprenticeship, helping grow our community as council strives towards growing our population to 5000.
“An award like this is great recognition for Rani and showcases the opportunities for young people to grow a career here in Gilgandra.”
