Rita Panahi: Council clowns are a costly joke
DELUSIONS of grandeur don’t come more pronounced than local government buffoons delving into global affairs and historic injustices, writes Rita Panahi.
Rita Panahi
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DELUSIONS of grandeur don’t come more pronounced than local government buffoons delving into global affairs and historic injustices.
Councillors are increasingly involving themselves in matters well above their station, from national and international issues to genocides committed in faraway lands.
MONASH COUNCIL COULD DEBATE EVENTS FROM A CENTURY AGO IN OTTOMAN EMPIRE
The City of Monash is the latest local government authority to beclown itself with its debate about official acknowledgment of the Armenian genocide.
Councillors Josh Fergeus and Theo Zographos have discussed the idea, with the former maintaining that the matter “remains a live issue” for the council and that “detailed” community consultations will need to take place.
It seems that the main reason some councillors are shying away from formal recognition isn’t the fact that the massacre of more than 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire happened a century ago on the other side of the world but fears that it will offend some constituents from the Turkish community.
Monash mayor Rebecca Paterson quite rightly pointed out that the issue had “absolutely nothing to do with our responsibilities as a local council”; however, Paterson followed that up with “but most unfortunately, it seeks to pit one part of our multicultural community against other parts”.
When has that ever stopped local government from grandstanding on a range of topics way outside its core responsibilities?
Activists in local government have long misused their positions to push a range of divisive policies that pit one part of the community against another, whether it’s indigenous issues, same-sex marriage, climate change, hijab experiments or border protection policies.
The only matters that councils should be concerned with are collecting the rubbish, fixing potholes, running the local library and doing their best to keep rates low.
Global and national policy discussions are not matters for local government regardless of how interesting they are to bored councillors.
We already have two other tiers of government for the “big” stuff; those elected to council need to respect the scope of their duties and just stick to the job at hand, which in no way includes speculation about global or national affairs.
We have councillors flying around the world on ratepayers’ money to attend climate conferences and to conduct research that could be done at their desk on this little-known thing called “the internet”.
When not squandering money on junkets and harebrained schemes, councils seem obsessed with gesture politics from flying the rainbow flag to ‘refugees welcome’ banners to the Yarra council’s voting to fly the Co Vang flag, which the federal government warned could jeopardise trade with Vietnam.
But local councils seem to care little about trade, whether it’s exporting to Vietnam or the local trader trying to make ends meet in a difficult retail market.
Last year Moreland council backed a protest by a rabid band of known troublemakers who succeeded in turning Coburg into a battleground on the busiest trading day for local businesses.
Socialist Alliance councillor Sue Bolton disregarded the pleas of small business owners along with the advice of police, the state government and the Opposition to proceed with a protest featuring masked extreme-Left anarchists.
It wasn’t the first time that Bolton had monopolised council time and it certainly won’t be the last. “Sometimes we get bogged down with Sue Bolton motions and we don’t get to the real items on the agenda from (council management) until very late in the night,” former mayor Lambros Tapinos said last year.
Tonight Moreland council is expected to debate another Bolton motion, this time on organising a “major public forum” on a treaty with Aborigines.
Again, it’s an issue that has nothing to do with local government, which should not be wasting time and resources on the pet projects of frustrated activists who think being elected to Moreland council is akin to sitting on the UN Human Rights Council.
If councillors find the business of local government beneath them then they should find other ways to amuse themselves that don’t waste the funds of long-suffering ratepayers.
We are over-governed in Australia and in an ideal world the local tier of government would be abolished and absorbed by the state government.
Sadly, that isn’t happening anytime soon so in the meantime let’s keep local government accountable.
You may not be able to name a single councillor or your local mayor but these elected officials deserve as much scrutiny as state and federal politicians.
Meanwhile, the community waits with bated breath to see if Monash council makes a determination one way or the other about the Armenian genocide.
This is the same council where deputy mayor Stuart James blamed the media, not the increase in violent crime in Victoria, for people feeling less safe.
No wonder so many are disengaged from local government and would rather be fined than vote in a council election.
Rita Panahi is a Herald Sun columnist
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