Luis Feliu
A controversial walkout from last night’s Tweed Shire Council meeting by National Party councillors deprived the meeting of a quorum and prevented mayor Katie Milne’s move to stay on in the job for a further six weeks from September 15.
The deliberate tactic has been used before by Crs Warren Polglase, Phil Youngblutt and Carolyn Byrne when the numbers weren’t going their way.
The three Nats councillors last night made it clear they don’t want the Greens mayor to continue as caretaker mayor till the re-scheduled October 29 poll, and recently had been spruiking for octogenarian Cr Youngblutt, who is retiring from politics, to be mayor.
But critics say that would give the Nats the casting vote among the six councillors, in the last few precious weeks of the council term, to push their own agenda.
The state government has admitted the law on holding a new mayoral election, which would allow the incumbent mayor to continue till the poll, is ambiguous.
Given the confusion, Cr Milne last night put up an urgency motion to scrap the interim mayoral election scheduled for 15 September, saying the shire ‘didn’t need the instability’ and that a new mayor should be elected by councillors after the October 29 election.
Tweed mayor Katie Milne.
The interim mayoral poll scheduled for 15 September would have seen a new mayor in the role only for a matter of weeks.
The cancellation of the Tweed’s 10 September election and rescheduling was sparked by the recent death of one of the candidates after nominations closed, Kingscliff local Ken Nicholson.
Council’s general manager Troy Green last week issued a press release giving the new date for the poll following Mr Nicholson’s death.
In it, Mr Green claimed that ‘other effects of the change of election date’ was that ‘there will be a mayoral election on 15 September 2016 and again at the first meeting of the new council in early November’.
Deputy mayor Gary Bagnall said the local government legislation did allow for the mayor and deputy to continue in their roles till a fresh election.
But a letter from the Office of Local Government given to councillors by Mr Green last night added to the confusion and was the reason why Cr Milne put up her mayoral minute to resolve the issue.
In the letter, acting chief executive of the office, Tim Hurst, said he was ‘sorry the office was unable to provide clearer guidance’ on the issue as ‘the situation is unprecedented and the position in the legislation is not clear’.
Mr Hurst suggested council obtain their own legal advice on the mayoral election issue.
Cr Milne said ‘the law is very ambiguous on this, and a few people queried the state government about whether the mayoral elections really had to be held’.
‘It seemed so absurd and such a waste in administrative costs to change over mayors, just to be mayor for six weeks, that the law must have been intended to be interpreted the other way as some claimed,’ she said.
‘There is another provision in the Act that says if we fail to appoint a mayor, the Governor may appoint a mayor from one of the councillors.
‘This seemed like a good way out of the predicament, and presumably the Governor would maintain the mayoral status quo.
‘The general manager and the public officer both agreed that not calling a mayoral election was an option.
‘I proposed this option at the council meeting last night but the three National Party aligned councillors Warren Polglase, Phil Youngblutt and Carolyn Byrne, who seemed intent on a new mayoral election, walked out of the meeting refusing to discuss it.
‘This caused a failure of quorum and the meeting had to be adjourned till next Thursday’ Cr Milne said.
The incumbent mayor said that just after the meeting, ‘we received advice from the state government that the legislation was ambiguous ‘and could be interpreted either way under the Interpretive Act in regard to whether the mayoral election is required after all’.
Cr Bagnall told Echonetdaily that the Nationals’ faction ‘wants to get rid of Katie for a few weeks so they can go to town’, as they would control the casting vote.
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