Tweed councillors spared extra mayoral election

Luis Feliu

Tweed shire councillors will not have to choose a mayor twice in six weeks after they voted late yesterday not to have a mayoral vote before the October poll

The original election for the Tweed Shire Council, scheduled for 10 September, was postponed till the end of October as a result of one of the council candidates dying soon after the poll was declared.

Mayor Katie Milne and deputy mayor Gary Bagnall will now remain in their jobs till the 29 October election.

On 24 August, the Office of Local Government (OLG) had advised Tweed Shire Council that, under the Local Government Act, a mayoral election still had to be held in September, and the person elected would only hold the office until the new election.

That sparked some confusion and surprise among councillors, and a move by mayor Katie Milne at last week’s meeting for the extra mayoral election to be scrapped.

But that meeting had to be adjourned due to the controversial walkout by National Party faction of Crs Warren Polglase, Carolyn Byrne and Phil Youngblutt, depriving the meeting of a quorum. (See previous Echonetdaily story at https://www.echo.net.au/2016/09/nats-faction-stymies-tweed-mayor-walking/)

Soon after the adjournment, councillors received further advice from the OLG that the Local Government Act could be interpreted differently, thus doing away with the need for a separate mayoral election ahead of the new election.

In a heated debate on the issue yesterday, mayor Milne was forced to stand twice to rule Cr Byrne out of order for continually interrupting her.

Councillors voted to preserve current officeholders until the declaration of the 29 October poll. The vote was 3-2 (Crs Byrne and Polglase against, Cr Youngblutt absent due to illness).

In a blog (comment) to Echonetdaily’s story last week, last week, Cr Byrne said: ‘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 captain’s call that the mayor proposed with her mayoral minute,’ she wrote.

Cr Bagnall told Echonetdaily he had been advised by senior council staff that if a similar walkout occurred yesterday forcing the meeting to be adjourned due to a lack of a quorum, the state government could have intervened.

He said the local government minister is empowered to issue council with a ‘performance improvement order’ in which the minister could set a lower quorum number in order for meetings to continue.

The tactic of scuttling meetings through walkouts has been used occasionally in NSW local government politics, including Byron shire, when one faction doesn’t have the numbers to achieve its agenda.