Reading between the lines of Mayoral Mandates

Alas, for many in the community, the reality is that they will arrive at the polling booth with no idea who to vote for and little idea of how to vote to ensure their vote matters. We know that many will Donkey Vote putting their Number 1 on the Mayoral Voting form and a single Number 1 on the Councillor Voting form Favoritism in a name: The next default will be to look for names we might know. Mat Hatcher and Tubby Harrison will be hoping, as new candidates, that this might help them across the line with Mat being well known across social media and Tubby well known in Moruya. To the average person their policies don't matter. They know the name and that is good enough. Favoritism in a Party: You will note that we have Greens and Labor. Then there is the Mayne Team and the Independents. Some will vote for their favourite team. "I always vote Labor", "I always vote Green", "I always vote Independent". Voting for someone from my Town: We used to have Wards. North for the Bay, Central for Moruya and Tuross and South for Narooma. Once we used to vote for councillors to represent our wards. Once those elected Councillors then voted on who would be Mayor for two years. Then after two years they would do it again. This all went along nicely until they decided to get rid of the wards because that would enable more councillors to be voted in from the North and Central because that was where the growth and money was. Narooma was already the poor cousin and no-one (except Narooma) cared. The next move was to vote in a popularly elected Mayor for four years. This was brought in based on ego and the desire to be elected to the position without challenge and Councillors moving to de-throne a Mayor if they became too big for their boots. The sad thing was that this exposed the Eurobodalla to the potential of having a total dud as Mayor for the next four years. We live and learn. This election will see Town Favouritism. Mat Hatcher and his team will be working on the North, Central and South as Pollock hoping his northern and southern running mates will glean parochial votes. Tuross Head will see the local vote diluted with the choice of six Tuross based candidates. Imagine if they were all voted in as Councillors. So will you vote for someone from your town who knows your issues and has actually been to your unmowed parks, driven your potholed streets and attempted to use you local public toilet (and if they did, were unable to wash their hands for lack of any provided soap?) Gender selection: There is every chance that female voters will vote for female candidates. The community has said, all too often, that it is fed up with the country being run by "privileged white males" Keep in mind that the majority of voters have arrived at the Polling Booth with no idea who the candidates are and they have only minutes to digest what is visibly available via advertising signs. There is no gauntlet to run. There are no How to Vote handouts to refer to. If the voter hasn't arrived informed then they are on their own in the polling booth with only two blank forms and a pencil.

You might have worked out exactly who you want and place a firm Number 1 in the box on the Mayoral Form and above the line on the Councillors form. Those are your Votes and that is who you want. But wait... you have also the story of how Maureen Nathan became a councillor for the past five years with only FOUR votes. Only four people voted for Maureen out of 22,000 voters yest there she was in the Council making decisions for all of us. How did that happen. It happens because of all the deals that the different teams make, passing their votes on to another candidate if they don't make it. Only four people voted for Maureen but her fellow candidates passed their votes on to her to get her across the line. This is how the preferences look for our election. If you follow the Candidate How to Vote directions and vote Number 1 for Tubby Harrison and he doesn't get in then YOUR vote goes to Mat Hatcher. And if Mat hasn't made the cut then YOUR vote goes to Rob Pollock. If Rob Pollock becomes Mayor it might be because YOU voted for him without realising it. That's how Maureen Nathan became a councillor with just four votes. The ONLY way you can ensure your vote only goes to those you want is to Fill in Every box on the Mayoral Voting form and to VOTE BELOW the Line on Councillor ballot form.

For those of us wanting to be better informed of the candidates and what they stand for we can look at their 'one-liner' mandates. Advance Eurobodalla says: We resolve to rebuild the trust between Council and community and have set three immediate priorities:

If we pull that apart it implies that we don't have transparent and accountable community engagement through accessible, diverse and innovative methods. Rather than double-speak all they had to say was "We will use the existing Community Engagement Framework and reinstate Live Streaming of Public Forum". The Optimal utilisation priority is a furphy - it suggests that resources have been poorly utilised. What resources ? Additionally they say, "at the first opportunity, we will move to freeze any further rate increases levied by Council. This freeze and current rate prices will be reassessed once the results of those audits are known." Council is reliant on rate rises to cover the continuing increase in the costs of maintenance, renewal and provision of new assets and facilities. The Innes team put forward in 2016 that "We will seek a performance audit of Council finances to ensure money is spent properly and wisely. We will investigate how to get the best return for ratepayers from Council assets. We will establish a Waste Watch Committee to get maximum value and minimise waste." But NOTHING happened. The Innes manifesto of 2016 was nothing but political marketing. The final priority of Advance Eurobodalla is the Strategic Planning for resilience through disaster. If you read how they intend to achieve this you might wonder why the current Council has failed to update its Emergency Management Plans, nearly two years after the bushfires. This is a valid line of questioning to put to the Mayne Team, The Prefer Pollock Team, James Thomson's team and the Greens given that they all were at the table over the past five years and failed to step up regarding future proofing the community in the event of emergencies. Remember that YOUR Vote for Mat Hatcher for Mayor might actually see Tubby Harrison elected or Karyn Starmer as she is third preference. Like Mat Hatcher, the Tubby Harrison team of A Better Council has policies that promote that "ratepayer’s voices are heard though a return of advisory committees closed by the current Council and the reopening of Council meetings to public scrutiny and the public voice". They also add that "Our small Shire must join the Local Government Association and be heard."

Of interest is the policy of "We need to outsource to industry those activities not required by Council to save on rates and support local business who are far more efficient in delivery.

Tourism decisions needs to be directed by Tourism operator’s not Council staff." This all sounds terrific but comes to a grinding halt when you realise there is no detail as to what activities they intend to outsource and how they intend to garner Tourism Operator's needs. On transparency, which is a common theme across all the candidates the A Better Council says "We are concerned about Council culture and anecdotal evidence from current councillors about fear of disclosure and transparency regarding Council information. Council needs to become more transparent when dealing with the public." Being 'concerned' is one thing - four candidates for the 2021 election have been in Council for the past five years and have allowed the alleged failures around disclosure and transparency to permeate. Recognising is one thing. Finding a solution is another thing altogether. Lastly, as a teaser to gain your vote is the addition of "Active lobbying for a Level 4 Hospital and local oncology radiation." and "We support the infrastructure development and installations of charging ports in our local Shire Council to aid the uptake of electric vehicles in our region." Are these Policies from the A Better Council enough to get your vote? In the above preferences you will see the name Karyn Starmer. Karyn is with the Mayne Team and their policies can be found here Many of their policies are not new. Anthony Mayne was a councillor for the past five years and, in reading the policies being put forward, one immediately has to ask why Anthony Mayne didn't put up Notices of Motion in his last term to (as an example) implement a town planning policy focused on: designed public spaces, a mix of housing density

preservation of forests and beaches, creation of shady, livable streetscapes for the warming climate affordable, and centrally-located housing. All of the above is commendable and could have been initiated anytime over the past five years but wasn't. Much of the above would have been backed by Clr Pat McGinlay as a Green. In the five years he didn't put up any of these initiatives either. The Mayne Mandate says "The MAYNE Team’s ‘community first’ program will see Council adopt a new community-focused way of working, including resuming the live stream of public forums and opening". But Council has a new community-focused way of working with the community via its Community Engagement Framework. For one reason or another this framework, which is open and transparent, wasn't activated and there was no comment or outcry from Anthony Mayne (or any of the other councillors). So the question remains "Why not, and what will see this mindset change moving forward if Councillors, based on their history, do nothing to call it out?". There is much the Mayne team offer in their policies that sound terrific however, if you scratch below the surface and know the realities of constraints under legislation there is little that can easily achieve. Take for example "The MAYNE Team will run a robust review process on the sale of all community assets." The sale of the Moruya Race course, the sale of public reserves considered surplus to needs, the proposed sale of the Batemans Bay Community Centre, the Batemans Bay Information Centre lease and then sale, the sale of the Batemans Bay Bowling Club site... all of these are legal as the properties are classified Operational and outside of the control of Councillors. Simple throw-away lines such as "The MAYNE Team will support local farmers and market gardeners via land allocation and favourable water pricing", when dissected begs one to ask what land and, if farmers are subsidised with favourable water pricing then shouldn't the same be extended to businesses who are already struggling to meet inflated cost due to price gouging to ensure a dividend return from the Water Fund to the General Fund via a legal loophole that enables Council to charge maximum water and sewer rates. Most of our returning candidates voted to support that process for the past five years. Once you begin to look at policies and realise there is far more to the one liner promises the more you begin to realise that, like Liz Innes' CAA team mandates, you can promise the Earth and, once elected deliver prunes and poppycock. When it comes to the policies of the Greens there is a major blank to be found in regards to any detail around Eurobodalla. Their policy page outlines the policies of the Greens Australia and NSW being Ecological Sustainability, Social and Economic Justice, Peace, Non-Violence, Disarmament and Grassroots Democracy. At a local level all we know are the catch phrases of Accountability from Council, Liveability - vibrant, resilient communities and Environmental Responsibility. One might ask why these mantras were not brought to bear by the previous Greens councillor and his team with the same passion and demand as his Green predecessors. Very few Questions on Notice around accountability, resilience and environmental responsibilities and even less, if any, Notices of Motion. It is all good to say you will do something but it requires followup actions. Sadly the Greens offer no hint of how they intend to deliver by way of budgets, timelines and policies. Of interest is to see the preference deals being done between Labor and the Greens. Who would have thought that voting for a Labor Councillor above the line might deliver a Green councillor instead. Vote Below the Line if you want to retain control of exactly who you want and who you DO NOT. And what of Eurobodalla Labor? Their policies are impressive and generally deliverable without being overly ambitious in the two and a half years they will have until the next election in 2024. There is little doubt that the Donkeys, the Favourite Parties, the Gender preferred, the Town preferred, The Known names and even the Favourite Letters ("I always vote for D") will come into play. Who will win. Your guess is as good as mine but I am hoping my vote, numbering all boxes, will have a role to play in the final determination.