Greens challenge local mayor

The Greens are calling for a change in laws allowing local councils to be populated by non-residents.

“I think most people in Strathfield, Burwood and Marrickville would be shocked to know that their Mayor doesn’t actually live in the local council area,” said Sylvia Hale, Greens MP and Spokesperson for Local Government.

Ms Hale believes that a number of conflicts of interest arise when councillors live outside the areas they represent. Most obviously, she points to the disconnection from local voices and local issues.
But of perhaps greater concern, said Hale, is the “inbuilt conflict of interest when property and business owners are involved in deciding how to spend ratepayers’ money or
making zoning decisions that may directly affect the value of their businesses in an area in which they don’t live.”

“Those locals on councils who are there, not for their own business interests, but to serve their own communities, are the people best placed to be councillors and mayors.”

With reference to a growing number of phone calls and allegations from her constituents pertaining to candidates for council positions filing false addresses in their various campaigns to take local office, Hale is calling for the State Electoral Office to investigate a number of offences which amount to electoral fraud.

Interestingly, this call was made just days before the release of a survey of 2000 Australians. Unsurprisingly, it found that state government is considered the most expendable level of government in this country. Perhaps those councils should be getting their affairs in order.