Adelaide City Council staff spent 83 hours answering Cr Phil Martin’s questions from two meetings
City Council staff were forced to spend 83 hours to answer questions asked by one councillor over two meetings – but he says he won’t be a “rubber stamp”.
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Senior staff are spending dozens of hours each month answering questions from an Adelaide City councillor blamed for making meetings end in the early hours.
Retired senior media executive Phillip Martin has been identified as the elected member putting the most motions and questions on notice on to council agendas, leading to lengthy debates.
Staff have recorded spending 83.5 hours preparing replies for Mr Martin for the council’s monthly meetings in September and October.
Council meetings regularly have been ending in the early hours since Lord Mayor Sandy Verschoor, a former council general, restructured their schedule.
Ms Verschoor moved from two meetings each month to one meeting while also disbanding most committees and replacing them with three committee meetings or workshops.
Cr Martin, who is in his second term, was putting at least two motions on notice and asking two to three questions on notice for each of the bi-monthly meetings.
He is now putting around four to six on each monthly agenda.
A member of the council’s dominant Team Adelaide faction, Franz Knoll, used its numbers in June to get staff to document how much time they spent answering questions from councillors.
Agendas for the past two meetings showed staff spent 83.5 hours on Mr Martin’s questions or motions. The next closest councillor was Greens member Robert Sims, who took up 24 hours of staff time.
The calculation follows an earlier tactic by Team Adelaide to measure Cr Martin’s activity, when Deputy Lord Mayor Alexander Hyde asked staff to calculate how long he had spoken at the June meeting, which went for 392 minutes.
Results showed Cr Martin spoke for 83 minutes, compared with Ms Verschoor who spoke for 106.5 minutes. Cr Hyde spoke for 43.9 minutes while Cr Martin’s ally, veteran councillor Anne Moran, spoke for 5.8 minutes.
Cr Martin said the requirement to make staff record how long they spent dealing with councillors’ motions and notices – and the timing of the June meeting – were attempts to gag him.
He described the practice as something like a Yes Minister script that “even Sir Humphrey would get a belly laugh out of”.
“No matter how much the Lord Mayor and her Team Adelaide faction would like me to be their rubber stamp, I won’t stop asking questions,” he said.
“This is a dysfunctional council led by a group of people who constantly admit and then deny being part of this shadowy faction that hates scrutiny, has tried gag people like me and constantly votes against transparency.
“The City of Adelaide desperately needs more people asking questions and holding it to account instead of bagging people who do.”
Cr Knoll said staff time was being wasted “primarily in the drafting of comment on frivolous motions”.
“Many of these motions would cause considerable financial and reputational risk, meaning that admin comments need to be drafted accurately and legalled,” he said.
“Staff time also is wasted during meetings which run for so long because members abuse our processes by bringing excessive questions to the chamber instead of committee, or by dragging meetings out to prove their points that we need to double the number of meetings.
“The whole reason we went down to one meeting per month was to free up admin time as the sheer number of motions was grinding them to a halt.”
Cr Knoll said he was “trying to heighten accountability for elected members’ conduct, particularly those who filibuster or exploit the processes in the chamber”.
“When councillors are game-playing and politicking, that all costs ratepayers money and staff time being spent more productively,” he said.
Mr Knoll said some councillors needed to be reminded “we are there to achieve the best value and outcomes for ratepayers”.
“We should not be here for individuals to play the process or impose themselves over others, but only to deliver for our ratepayers and improve our city for everyone,” he said.
Cr Hyde said it was like elected members were “being held hostage”.
“It’s awful that one or two members dominate our meetings and unnecessarily drag them out into the wee hours of the morning,” he said.
“It is an attrition strategy to grind down others and the Lord Mayor is entirely powerless to stop it.”
The next full council meeting is on Tuesday, with Cr Martin already lodging three questions of notice.
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