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Byron Shire
March 28, 2024

Nats faction stymies Tweed mayor by walking out

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Cr Carolyn Byrne and Nats colleagues Crs Warren Polglase and Phil Youngblutt again walked out of the council meeting last night to deprive it of a quorum.
Cr Carolyn Byrne and Nats colleagues Crs Warren Polglase and Phil Youngblutt again walked out of the council meeting last night to deprive it of a quorum.

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.

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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14 COMMENTS

  1. Councillors of any political persuasion who sneer at democracy like this for their own or their political masters’ devious purposes should be barred from any further council activity. I find it disgusting that any group who think they may not get their own way democratically instead destroy the lawful process – not just immature, infantile. (apologies to infants everywhere)

  2. More catastrophic fall out from the poor decision of candidate Ron Cooper for choosing a very old, frail and ill person on his team who died recently … because of this if the Nationals party is elected some really disastrous decisions could be made and recission motions on good decisions could be made. Once again it all hangs on ‘middle of the road’ man Barry Longland to vote with the good guys (Cr Milne and Cr Bagnall).

  3. This walk-out is the type of petty behaviour we, as ratepayers and voters, are sick of. Can you not even be grown up enough to discuss this with the Mayor like adults?
    The idea of a new Mayor for 6 weeks is farcical, and expensive for us, as ratepayers.
    If the 3 councillors involved can’t stand another 6 weeks of Mayor Milne being in the deciding seat, maybe a compromise could be made that the Mayors casting vote will not be used on any issues in the next 6 weeks, thereby diffusing the situation without requiring a whole lot of additional expense for our Shire. Any issues where the decision is tied 3 votes to 3 could be deferred till after the Council elections.

  4. An appalling hijacking of democracy yet again by a disgraced former mayor and his lackeys. These people have no shame and less decency. Toddlers in kindergartens behave better. Their desperation to destroy the Tweed has plumbed new depths. Vote them OUT at the upcoming election.

  5. I am appalled at the behaviour of Councillors Polglase, Byrne and Youngblutt. These National Party aligned Councillors are acting like spoilt children, if they can’t get their own way they run away.
    Residents are sick of the dysfunction caused by these three Councillors. They are so hell bent on getting their own way in the Shire they pretend to be Independent candidates for the upcoming election and yet once again their behaviour clearly shows they are politically aligned and joined at the hip!
    Residents across the ShIre from the bush to the sea need to wake up to the election tactics of these Councillors and vote for true independent thinking people who hopefully will bring peace, harmony and adult behaviour so that the Shire can move forward.

  6. Low rent tactics from greedy little people. The Nationals (calling themselves Independents?) of this Valley are the old school and are fading into insignificance. This is their last ditch effort to subvert the respected process. How much longer must we suffer from this ignorant self serving attitude that perverts our democratic process. Warren P, why not retire along with your henchman Phil Y and allow the decent effort to safeguard this beautiful Valley that you appear so intent upon destroying through your politically motivated ego and your economic bottom line rubbish.
    It is time we cleaned up this Council which in turn would show more respect to the community, please be sure you do not vote for these ancient thinking Nationals in the upper coming election.

  7. Consistently inconsistent actions are ALWAYS the true indicator of gross incompetence from those in charge of managing any situation.

  8. I am neither surprised by the bias reporting, nor the comments, when the only information is provided by two councillors who are seeking reelection ( no media were present). The community was advised that there would be an election of a Mayor in September, based on the advice from the office of local government to Tweed Shire Council. ( TSC media release 24/8). Why should the Mayor, who continually advocates for community consultation, take it as her own, some would say-self serving, to keep herself in the seat.. This can still happen at the election in September, with a proper election; this would be democracy, not the Captains Call that the Mayor proposed with her Mayoral Minute.

  9. There is nothing ‘self-serving’ about making a perfectly reasonable suggestion. But there is a lot which is self-serving about a woman who tries to hijack a 30 year community consultation process by raising recission motions to take advantage of a mayor being on sick- leave, That was disgusting. . No wonder My two year old grandson behaves much better than the tantrum thrown by the three councillors who hijacked yet another council meeting because it didn’t suit their agenda. Absolutely appalling. No wonder politicians have such a bad name.

    Time these people went back to kindergarten and learned a few manners.

    Tweed- we do not need people of this ilk on council.

    Vote them out.

  10. TSC is now functioning under s318 of the LGA Act for “failed election” where civic holders hold the position until the new election. It makes nothing short of common sense for stability and administrative reasons to keep the status quo for just six short weeks. The National alliance’s walk out (dummy spit) is a breach of the Code of Conduct and treats the Tweed Shire community with contempt. And I will not insult our children by calling this abhorrent and arrogant behaviour childish.

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