Maranoa Regional Council workers now permitted to speak to journalists as elected councillors ‘shut up’ in new media policy

A new media policy will limit individual Maranoa councillors from speaking to journalists without the mayor’s permission, leading to councillors arguing they’ve been ‘shut up’ despite being elected representatives.

Maranoa Regional Council has passed a new Council Media Policy that only permits the mayor and on occasion the deputy mayor to speak to media organisations on behalf of council.

Maranoa Regional Council has passed a new media policy that limits individual elected councillors from speaking to media organisations as part of a model to ‘protect the reputation of council at all times’.

While the Maranoa mayor Tyson Golder claims the new model allows a wider variety of voices from council staff to be heard, the opposite can be said for elected councillors who can only speak on behalf of council with the mayor’s signature of approval.

Mayor Golder presented the new finalised media policy at the June 28 Ordinary Meeting, which was first debated in council chambers three years ago.

According to the meeting minutes, the Council Media Policy “has been drafted to support better media management”.

Council CEO Edwina Marks said the new policy had been designed to assign certain media inquiries to particular people.

She said the mayor and deputy mayor would be responsible for any council issues being debated, while the CEO and relevant council officers would now be responsible for commenting on any operational and organisational issues such as public safety notices and road closures.

She said this ensured media inquiries went to the most relevant person.

“We’re formalising that the mayor and deputy mayor are the only ones speaking on behalf of the council,” she said.

“This policy is more of a practical solution.

“It saves time for having to catch councillors up to speed on technical issues within council departments i.e. saleyards issues would be better suited to having general manager as a spokesperson who knows the ins and outs.

“But where there are contentious issues I think it’s well recognised that we do need to make sure we’re all protecting the reputation of council at all times.”

Maranoa Regional Council generic. Photo: Lachlan Berlin

Councillor Johanne Hancock spoke against the motion, claiming the new media policy posed numerous problems including exposing council workers to media scrutiny while simultaneously stripping elected councillors’ ability to speak about any aspect of council on behalf of council.

“When I was a staff member there was a very determined line in the sand - no staff spoke to the media, that’s the councillors’ jobs because they’re the ones sitting at the table making those decisions,” she said.

“By doing this we could be putting our staff on the front line to justify decisions of council that they might not even agree with and that they didn’t make.

“I don’t think it’s right you’ve got nine elected members sitting around the table, (and) council’s decided to let the mayor and deputy mayor be the spokespersons for council but the rest of us councillors don’t get to be a spokesperson for council.

“We’re actually shut up, we’re not allowed to but yet we’re going to let our council officers go on the frontline and be our spokespersons on our behalf on the decisions that we make.”

Ms Hancock said a major flaw of the policy was the blurred lines between what the mayor and the council staffers were each permitted to comment on as what’s debated by councillors inevitably becomes a part of the operational and organisational structure of council.

“I simply can’t support a policy go ahead where I think there’s going to be grey areas,” she said.

Maranoa Region Councillor Johanne Hancock said the new media policy will ‘shut up’ elected representatives and expose council staffers to media scrutiny over decisions made in council chambers.

“From what I see the moment we make a decision in these chambers, it becomes operational to therefore give the authority to staff to comment on it which has been done with the councillor’s cars, that’s an example, that’s a decision that was made in this chamber and then your staffer has been quoted in the newspaper.”

Councillor Cameron O’Neil also opposed the new media policy explaining how it would hinder elected councillors’ civic leadership role and ability to communicate to the public.

“My opposition to this still sits with the same argument as when we debated this three years ago, one of the largest responsibilities of an elected representative outside of making decisions in meetings like this is speaking on behalf of those decisions for council,” he said.

“It had worked exceptionally well eight years prior to the policy change enacted this term. It gave councillors the opportunity to play a civic leadership role in voicing the position of council externally to the media and I think that’s really important for all councillors to have the opportunity to do that.

Maranoa Region councillor Cameron O’Neil said the new media policy would limit elected councillors’ ‘civic leadership role.’

“This policy here embeds it further that councillors can’t do that without the sign off of the mayor.

“Further to that and I mean absolutely no disrespect to the council staff and I don’t have a problem with the CEO speaking on matters pertaining to the organisations from an operating perspective, but this policy will elevate council staff over elected representatives and their ability to freely speak and be the spokesperson for council.”

Mayor Tyson Golder disagreed with all the issues raised by opponents of the policy, claiming the policy “needs to implemented as soon as possible.”

“I think this is very good for the ratepayers of this region, it’s very clear the mayor and deputy mayor are the ones that speak on behalf of council but there’s a lot of operational issues that we almost had this big line where no one was allowed to say anything, this will make it quicker to get out,” the mayor said.

“I think this is actually just if you had a business approach, and I do take offence to saying it wouldn’t be as professional or something like that, if the staff are doing it.

“I think our staff are very professional, I believe they can pass on comments to the media.

“It’s not changing quotes from the mayor or deputy mayor, none of that’s changing but it’s ridiculous to have a general manager council has put in place and say they cannot speak to the media.

“There’s common sense issues the CEO can get on the front foot and tell the community, I think that’s very positive and I’ve always thought it’s very strange how councillors have locked up that comment in a way that our senior staff cannot make those comments.”

The motion to implement the Council Media Policy was won with a 6-3 vote.