Place your Betts: Libs win Lotto

BY PAM WALKER
It was a clean sweep for the Waverley Liberals who drew both the mayoralty and the deputy mayoralty out of the hat on Tuesday night.

Sally Betts is Waverley’s new mayor and Kerryn Sloan is deputy mayor.

The lottery was necessary because the local government election on September 13 produced a hung council of five Liberals, one independent, three Greens and three Labor.

This process will be repeated to decide the mayoralty every 12 months for the next four years.

The Liberals cleaned up, claiming the chair of every committee using the mayor’s casting vote.

But in a surprise move, the new independent councillor Miriam Guttman-Jones, who had supported the Liberals during the mayoral vote, abstained on the vote for chair of the planning committee, leading to a bitter first night for the new council.

Cr Guttman-Jones left the chamber when Cr Betts nominated Liberal Tony Kay as chair of the committee. Labor councillor John Wakefield immediately jumped up to nominate Cr Ingrid Strewe, but Cr Betts then interjected, indicating she wanted to take up the position herself.

A heated exchange erupted, during which Labor and the Greens argued Cr Betts had forfeited her right by nominating another councillor, but the general manager said the mayor was entitled to be chair of the committee.

Cr Guttman-Jones returned to the chamber and voted with the Liberals on a dissent motion put by Labor.
But dramatically, just before the end of the meeting Labor and the Greens moved to rescind the planning committee decision and then left the chamber, depriving the council without a quorum for the vote.

The rescission will now be voted on at the next council meeting on October 7.

Asked why she had abstained from the planning committee vote, Cr Guttman-Jones said she didn’t want to be pressured before she had found her feet on the council.
‘I’ve been under a lot of pressure on this vote,’ she said. ‘It’s all right, this is the first night and I learn quickly.’

But the pressure is not likely to abate over the next 12 months for Cr Guttman-Jones who now holds the balance of power in a hung council. She will again have the deciding vote when the rescission motion comes up.

Perhaps she could settle the issue by claiming the chair for herself.

The night began with former mayor Ingrid Strewe thanking staff and fellow councillors, in a voice at times overcome with emotion. She spoke of what Labor had achieved with the aid of the Greens in the last 20 years, before launching a scathing attack on the former Liberal council of Jim and Caroline Markham.

Labor and the Greens had nominated Cr Dominic Wy Kanak for the mayoralty and Cr Strewe for the deputy mayoralty. Both parties said it would have been significant for Waverley to have an Indigenous mayor next year as it celebrates its 150th anniversary.

After donning the mayoral chains, Cr Betts welcomed the new councillors, Cr Guttman-Jones, Liberal Yvonne Coburn, Labor Rose Jackson and Greens Prue Cancian, and warmly congratulated her new deputy.

‘I have sat here for 13 years knowing that my name could not be called out as the new mayor and it is now quite strange to have my name pulled out of the proverbial hat,’ she said.

‘We were humbled by the huge swing towards us and we will work hard to prove your faith has not been misplaced.’

Cr Betts especially thanked Cr Guttman-Jones for her support in the mayoral vote: ‘She has consistently said she would support us for the mayoralty and that she would then decide everything else on its merits.’