Last night’s Lismore Council meeting saw the mayor and councillors debate how much they are worth, in dollars, to the people of their electorate, and they voted on the merits of a rise in their stipend.
The Local Government Remuneration Tribunal each year determines the range of annual fees to be paid to Mayors and Councillors. Council needs to resolve within the category range the fees to be paid.
The recommendation was that the fees payable to the mayor and councillors for 2023/2024 be upped to $64,390 for the mayor and and $26,070 for the councillors, including the mayor in his role as a councillor.
The current rate is around $61k for the mayor (plus a councillor stipend) and around $24k for councillors
An often debated issue
Cr Elly Bird spoke first. ‘We’ve had this debate in the chamber a number of times. I’ll just direct councillors to the attachments where there is the report from the annual determination of local government, remuneration tribunal.
‘There are some pretty succinct points for the reasons for adopting the appropriate fee for councillors.
‘Firstly, that current remuneration levels do not adequately reflect the hours and complexity of work. Furthermore, low remuneration is a barrier to participation in diversity. Inadequate pay has significant negative consequences, low quality, low democracy and unacceptable burden on councillors and their families and poor counsellor diversity.
‘And thirdly, the current remuneration principles and structure are not reflective of time skills and competencies required to effectively perform the roles of councillor and mayor.‘
Keeping things the same
Cr Andrew Gordon foreshadowed a motion that the status quo, the current stipend, should remain.
Councillor Ekins, who attended the meeting remotely, said she could not believe that this same issue and its ensuing debate rears its head every year.
‘We’re in front of nearly 1,000 page documents that we read and comprehended. And we’re still here at 9.30 at night talking about these matters. And that doesn’t include all the committee meetings, and all the inquiries that we have from the community and all that – we work hard for this small amount of money.
‘Council has a $4 million increase in our wages bill this year, wages that we pay for our staff, more than the rates that we receive from our ratepayers. That just puts it into perspective that we are the cheapest part of this organisation and it really upsets me when other councillors suggest that we don’t go for this paltry amount of renumeration, because we deserve it. We do work really hard. If you want to make savings, look somewhere else.
‘We’re all in this we’re all trying to do the best we can for our community and scraping the bottom of the barrel by paying us a few $1,000 less is is not goodwill.
‘We would attract a much higher calibre of person to the role if it was actually a living wage and was treated like a job and take it seriously
I think councillors deserve the measly remuneration that we get for the huge hours that we put into our community.’
It just sucks
Cr Darlene Cook said it sucks when a system pays people so poorly that somebody who’s entitled to be on the pension has to go and get a job. ‘I had to get a job because of the stipend that we do not pay councillors in New South Wales compared to Queensland, which I’m sure our general manager perhaps was shocked to see the difference between the two states.
‘The 3 per cent increase is much less than the 4.6 per cent [increase] we’re paying our staff. It’s far less than the 5.75 per cent awarded to people on federal awards as well below the current inflation rate which was 7 per cent and as high as 7.8 per cent last December.
‘Local government finds it difficult to attract younger people, professional people and women and people from diverse backgrounds to stand for elections, due to the low rate of remuneration for the amount of work that is expected of councillors in New South Wales.’
Councils full of retired, old white men
‘And for the decades the only people who could afford to actually sit on councils, retired, old white men and if you’ve been to any local government count conferences in New South Wales, the predominant attendees were old white men.
‘I believe it has changed somewhere in the last eight years and there is now far better representation but, it was the purview of old retired people. It is changing, okay. But mostly acceptance of the stipend increase as part of our ongoing effort to provide reasonable remuneration not only for current councillors, but for future candidates considering contention at the 2024 elections.
‘Offering a reasonable stipend opens up the range of candidates and backgrounds of people who could consider putting themselves forward and this I believe, would make local government even better able to represent the diversity of our local communities.’
What a bonus!
Cr Jeri Hall said she wanted say that she didn’t actually realise councillors got paid at all. ‘So what a bonus!’
‘I just would like to say that I don’t know how anyone could consciously vote for a water or rate increase and then vote to put your wages up as well. Like, realistically, we’re asking our community to give us more money while we’re taking in more money. I just feel like it’s wrong and I don’t support it.’
Cr Peter Colby said that as a retired old white man, he would support it. ‘I believe that this council has gone through a really rough time for the last 12 months. We don’t recognise the mental stress or a lot of people in the organisation have gone through. We don’t know the long hours, we talk “oh we’ve got to save money, we’ve got to save this, we’ve got to save that”, but these people sitting in this room, really are the people who should take the future Lismore in their hands and their heart and move forward, and you can’t do that if you don’t feel as though you’re actually been recognised.’
Speaking as a retired, old white men
‘I can honestly say this is not relevant to me because I’m retired and I’m an old white man, so it doesn’t really affect me, but I genuinely believe that the people sitting at this table should recognise the fact that time has been put into it – we are not all in a wonderful position like I am.
‘There’s a lot of people who have to work longer hours and different times and struggle for a lot of things, and put a lot of time aside to be part of this community and to be part of this group of people who are supposed to take this council forward for the future.
‘I think it’s a small amount – at the end of the day, I genuinely believe we just need to get on with this job – stop squabbling about $2,000 or whatever it is, and make something of this community because at the moment, everybody’s looking at us and they’re thinking, “well, they’re fighting over $2,000. Let’s see them fight over making Lismore better for itself in 20 years time.’
Back to the schoolyard
Then all hell broke loose with the kind of squabbling we are getting used to from some of the councillors, with members talking over each other unintelligibly for quite a few minutes before the mayor put a stop to it. ‘This is getting ridiculously out of hand’, said Cr Krieg.
In the end the foreshadowed motion was the last one standing – that the stipend status quo, remain.
The mayor took a vote: ‘We’ve had speakers for, we’ve had speakers against – all those in favour of adopting the motion. Councillors Bird, Colby, Hall, Gordon, Cook, Jensen, Bing, Rob and Krieg – those opposed, councillors Ekins and Guise.’
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