Openness and accountability

During the election campaign I set out my view that Councils need to be open and transparent so that people can understand why decisions are made.  Even if people don't like a decision they will be better able to accept if they know the reasons behind the decision.  The following extract is from the Division of Local Government Practice Note 16, "Meetings Practice Note".

2.3 Councillor Accountability - Open Decision-making

Open decision-making is an important part of local government and should be the rule rather than the exception. The ability of the public and media to attend and watch council and committee meetings — seeing the deliberations and decisions of elected representatives — is essential for councillor accountability. This is recognised by the legislation, which encourages open decision-making at council meetings.

Councillors should be prepared to state their views publicly on both controversial and routine issues. Informed voting by electors is best achieved when they can observe the speeches, debate and voting patterns of their councillors.

Council decisions should be based on fairness, impartiality, objectivity and consideration of all the issues (Sections 4 and 6 of the Model Code). Open decision-making helps achieve this, as well as preventing misunderstanding and unfounded criticisms from the public.

I would like all decisions, except those relating to matters which are personal or are commercial, to be made in open council but this is proving difficult.  In the two council meetings and a couple of committee meetings I have attended so far there has been a tendency to have voting by secret ballot, even for things like deputy chair of a committee.  What are we trying to hide?

Now the Councillors Payment of Expenses and Provision of Facilities Policy is on public exhibition and it contains changes that reduce the amount of openness.  If a Councillor wants to attend a conference (and I support this in the right circumstances) he/she no longer has to bring the matter up in open council.  Just get approval from the Mayor and Deputy Mayor.  Yes there will be a list published later showing who went to what.  But once again what are we trying to hide?

At the recent elections 4 Councillors were removed from office.  To me that means that the public wants change and what I heard was that they want more openness and transparency.  I think they are getting less!

My first month on Council

So far I have attended several workshops (one even lasted over 6 hours) one full Council meeting, a meeting of two committees and a meeting of the audit committee. I was elected Chairman of the Finance and Administration Committe and one of 2 members of the Audit Committee.

My impressions so far is that there is a massivee amount of material to be read (I expected that so no problems) but the administrative support given to Councillors is wonderful - thank you Maria Barrett and Merran Palmer.

Some other impressions that might be cause to worry about the direction and intent of some people.  There seems to be an obsession with secret ballots even to elect Deputy Chairmen of Committees.  Let's be open and show people how we vote and then they will understand if there are alliances in Council.

I also have the feeling that "everything is set" and nothing can be done so us new guys just need to settle down and realise how good things are and what a great job Councillors have done to date.  Now I accept that, generally speaking, the city is in good shape but surely improvements can be made and at least some things can be done better. 

As a new Councillor what I can do at this stage is ask lots of questions and you can be sure I will.  In the next couple of posts I will show you some of the questions I have asked.  I will give Councillors the courtesy of showing them first.

By the way, if you have any questions, contact me and let me know.