A MAJORITY of councillors voted against establishing a formal positions of council policy at last week’s meeting.<\/p>\n
A report was provided to councillors after a request was made by Cr Ben Taylor during the March meeting and it used Mt Alexander Shire’s policy as a template.<\/p>\n
Mt Alexander Shire is the only Victorian Local Government Area to have this sort of policy, which restricts council from taking a formal position or advocating on certain issues.<\/p>\n
If the policy was carried, council would have been unable to adopt a formal position on issues which are subject to a state or federal referendum, are international in nature or are state or federal laws which do not affect local government’s operations.<\/p>\n
Mayor Cr Des Hudson voted against the policy and said the letter he wrote to the foreign minister regarding council’s adoption of a position on the conflict in Gaza did not cost any money or much time.<\/p>\n
“This started from a notice of motion on a humanitarian issue,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I sent a letter and I’ve had a response from the foreign minister thanking us for the letter.<\/p>\n
“The issue has been fully dealt with and resolved\u2026 it took an email with two attachments, not a great deal of time or a great deal of effort and zero expense.”<\/p>\n
Cr Daniel Moloney argued the policy had potential to restrict democracy by controlling what could be discussed by councillors.<\/p>\n
“This is a massive mistake,” he said. “It places unnecessary bureaucracy protocols around your role as a councillor.<\/p>\n
“If you don’t like it, don’t vote for it, it’s as simple as that.”<\/p>\n
Cr Belinda Coates said the policy was a “knee jerk” reaction to recent debate and that different community members want councillors to discuss different issues.<\/p>\n
“Essentially this policy is an attempt to limit, censor and restrict democracy,” she said.<\/p>\n
“It’s an extremely vague and poorly considered policy.”<\/p>\n
They were several community submissions supporting both sides of the debate, with those for the policy arguing that local government needs to stick to local issues and stop wasting resources.<\/p>\n
Another submitter suggested that there had only been three notices of motion about international issues in the last four years and therefore it was not a big issue.<\/p>\n
Cr Taylor, who voted for the policy along with Crs Amy Johnson, Belinda Hargreaves and Samantha McIntosh, said the policy would insure local government only discussed local issues.<\/p>\n
“We have a great opportunity to put local back into local government,” he said.<\/p>\n
“On matters that are broader or international in nature it shouldn’t be about us councillors making that decision.”<\/p>\n
CEO Evan King said there were no instances he could think of where a local issue had been removed from a meeting agenda to make room for an international one.<\/p>\n
“I am unaware of any items that council isn’t dealing with that it’s required to deal with,” he said.<\/p>\n
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