Dear Editor,
The mayoral ballot and the tyranny of small minds
I am prompted to write about the mayoral race because of the need to answer the rubbish being posted mainly to Facebook but also to the Beagle, by small-minded, uninformed individuals, with a nasty bent, about mayoral candidate Mathew Hatcher. Mat is more than able to look after himself, and he does so, in magnanimous style, but as a strong supporter of him and his team, I must say something.
What is it we need in a mayor? What must our mayor be able to do? We could spend hours discussing and no doubt disagreeing between ourselves in answering these questions but, not surprisingly, the Local Government Act 1993 provides the answer for us.
Section 226 of the LGA sets out the role of a mayor and lists 15 specific roles. At the top of that list we find that a mayor is:
(a) to be the leader of the council and a leader in the local community
(b) to advance community cohesion and promote civic awareness
These top-listed duties go to a mayoral candidate’s personal qualities and capacities, which go beyond, and are additional to, the essentially functional qualities necessary to fulfil the remaining duties. The qualities necessary to fulfill these top two duties are either inherent in the individual or simply absent. They cannot be manufactured. They can possibly be learnt, to some extent, as one might do in acting classes, but as we often see in so many aspiring but failed politicians, the result is a wooden, insincere manner. One cannot manufacture a persona.
To be a leader and to be able to advance community cohesion, which has been so completely absent over the past 5 years, one needs to be a natural at bringing people together, to be bright, enthusiastic, with innovative ideas and to have the energy and vitality of youth. Mat Hatcher has these qualities in spades. Those who say otherwise simply don’t know him. In my view, none of the other candidates come near him when measured against these requirements.
At the Tuross meet-the-candidates’ forum last Monday night, Mat did himself no favours. Having been constantly sledged as a ‘brash American’, which he is not, he overcorrected and held right back. He was so very uncharacteristically reticent; and then to be slammed for daring to express his valid concerns about party politics.
I have known Mat for about 5 years and especially so over the past year, and I have found him to hold the values that mean so much to me. He is a straight talker, completely open, honest and has a genuine egalitarian approach to the world. It is because of those qualities and his vitality, that I am giving him my full support.
I wish all new candidates the very best and look forward to a co-operative, genuinely engaging and progressive council in which we have cohesion, not division.
Peter Cormick
Deua River Valley
