Clover Moore in the double hot seat

Sydney’s mayor and member for parliament is defending the right to hold both roles in the face of proposed legislation which would ban politicians from holding dual positions.

The Lord Mayor Clover Moore MP has served in both positions for eight years and is against the state government’s move to prevent councillors from being elected into Parliament simultaneously.

“[My roles were] confirmed by four elections … legislation should not deny people’s right to choose,” Ms Moore said.

“My submission will argue that holding both roles involves demands similar to members of Parliament who are also ministers but with more overlap of responsibilities and less conflict.”

The NSW Government released a discussion paper that found 29 councillors from 24 councils were elected to the state parliament in March.

Of those 29 councillors, 11 were mayors and two were deputy mayors. The proposal was introduced at Premier Barry O’Farrell’s insistence that the Minister for Local Government, Don Page MP investigate issues of overrepresentation.

“My view from my experience as an MP is that if you are doing your job properly as a state MP, you have very little time for anything else,” Mr Page said.

This sentiment is shared by Camden MP, Chris Patterson, who stepped down from the office of Mayor of Camden in June.

“When I first got elected [as Mayor] I quite naively believed I could do both roles yet I clearly found with my role as a MP, which fully entailed time constraints, I could not do both at the best of my ability,” he said.

“As Mayor, I always prided myself on going to everything that opens, yet sometimes council meetings would fall when parliament sat and I could only be at one place at a time, not two.”

However, Mr Page said aside from the impossibility of being in two places at one time, one of the stronger arguments against the dual roles was conflict of interest.

“To me the classic case is when a constituent comes to see the state MP to complain about the council, but the person sitting in front of them is not only the state member but the mayor,” he said.

Institute of Public Affairs spokesman, Ted Lapkin, said there is a potential for conflict of interest for councillors who are also MPs.

“Are they going to excuse themselves from every vote in the parliament if it concerns the business of the local council?” said Mr Lapkin. “If they do, they will be excusing themselves from the majority of parliamentary proceedings, so what is the point being there?”

But for Mr Patterson, the issue does not reside in conflict of interest but in issues of time constraints.

“I don’t believe that conflict of interest exists, what I do believe though is that the council’s role is to do everything it can from a local government perspective and there will be time when council will need to lobby a state government policy and there could be a conflict in that role,” he said.

“This is not conflict of interest by very definition, it’s more that in both roles you are trying to achieve the best for your constituent and there may be conflict to achieve both outcomes.

The concurrent performance of both roles as councillor and as Member of State and/or Federal Parliament is prohibited in Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia.

The closing date for all submissions for and against the issue is January 31 and Ms Moore said she will argue that the proposal will have a significant impact on representative democracy and Australia’s parliamentary system.

Ms Moore said being forced to leave council would mean communities would have reduced representation on their local councils until the next Council elections, which could be up to 18 months away.

“Many other significant changes can only be made by referendum,” she said.

“Similarly, this change should only be made if it is approved at a referendum.”

Cabramatta MP, Nick Lalich, said he was not “under any pressure” to resign from his other day job as Mayor of Fairfield.

Mr Lalich was elected to the seat of Cabramatta in 2008 when Reba Meagher resigned, while he was already mayor.

“I think MPs should be able to hold both roles as long as it takes to avoid an expensive by-election, but you also have to consider it could stop people expanding their careers,” he said.

“Because I’m a popularly elected mayor, I can’t just become a councillor, I would have to leave the council altogether.”

By Kristie Beattie