Back from the brink of fun: Lismore Council’s extra meeting

Lismore Councillors found themselves dragged back from their official break today, almost a week early, for an extraordinary meeting at the behest of Councillor Big Rob, in regard to the Vision and Blueprint strategy and the Citizens’ Assembly.

Councillors who didn’t make it into the chamber were Andrew Bing, Elly Bird, Adam Guise and Jeri Hall, the latter attended by video link.

Councillor Big Rob gave notice of intention to move that: 1. Councillors are provided with detailed information about all aspects of the Vision and Blueprint strategy, including attendance information relating to community engagement events at least three working days prior to each event; and, 2. Council take no further action relating to the Citizens’ Assembly as part of the Vision and Blueprint strategy, and that no public reference be made to any third-party organisations or consultants involved in the strategy unless a prior agreement is in place following resolution of Council.

The staff comment was that a councillor workshop is scheduled for 30 January 2024. 

Public access

Speaking against the motion, which was later split into two, was Zoe Humphreys. ‘I’m going to try and speak to both parts of this motion. The first part – I identify the main thing is that Council be informed about attendance numbers three days prior to a meeting. 

‘Now whilst I can see that you can do this for a Citizens’ Assembly meeting. I don’t really see how you can do that for community consultation events. 

‘There’s a point about the council needing more information about Citizens’ Assemblies – I would say that there’s plenty of detailed information both in the Vision and Blueprint document and also NewDemocracy website. So I think that that’s really kind of an unnecessary comment. 

‘I also note that Councillors will be having a workshop on the topic. 

‘I think it’s very important that the public have information about this proposal. I don’t think it should be censored and the part of the community consultation process is in fact the Citizens’ Assembly, as it will be a group of representative people selected at random, who will consider the evidence both from experts and from community meetings, to develop reasoned and thoughtful recommendations that can confidently be taken forward to both local state and federal government, as the concerns and views of the community. 

Cr Colby on the record

Cr Peter Colby said that he wanted it put it on the record the fact that if this extraordinary general meeting wasn’t called by Councillor Rob, he would have called it himself. ‘The reason I decided to speak for this is that there was an underlying element going through this when it was originally brought out in March 23, that we would need to enter into our Vision statement and that we would work with the  staff and the community to develop this.

‘We had a number of workshops. It was always intended to come back to the Council at some stage to be actually verified and actually released. It hasn’t done that – the information hasn’t come forward from any of the areas other than the document that was released to the community, to everybody, without actually been seen by any of the Councillors prior to it’s been released publicly on the internet. And it’s all over the world now, so it doesn’t really matter. That document has now been withdrawn but it’s still out there. 

In the ‘back room’

‘The issue that concerns me, as this Council has been treated as though they’re sort of in the back room, they’re not been engaged in any of these discussions. None of this information is coming forward. And if you haven’t looked at the original scope of work that was put forward for the Vision statement, it was full inclusion of the Mayor, full inclusion of all the staff, full inclusion of all the Councillors, in all the decision-making processes going forward, and it’s been totally ignored by this group, and it’s been put out there through the back door and hasn’t been verified by the council. 

‘The Mayor has gone out on a media release on the basis of “it’s half finished”, but that doesn’t wash with me because all of a sudden we have all these issues floating forward. 

Not a ‘fun’ meeting

‘This meeting wasn’t called because it’s fun. This meeting wasn’t called because I felt as though everybody should come along on the 28th, we didn’t decide on the 28th. We wanted a special meeting to clear up the issues of what the future these Councillors are, sitting around this room. Because every Councillor in this room basically has had their authority eroded and their responsibility to deal with the 20,000 people that live in Lismore – their needs, wants and desires, have been totally eroded by this process, lack of information and lack of direction – so as far as I’m concerned that we need to put it into this and get more information.’

Cr Ekins unimpressed

Cr Vanessa Ekins said she was pretty unimpressed that in the middle of the summer holidays staff and Councillors are called into an extraordinary meeting that is unnecessary and expensive, to look at scrapping and exemplary world class consultation process. 

Now, staff noted you had some concerns about this process, and they deferred it and organised a workshop in January. Now that would have been the time for us to discuss this matter not in the middle of the holidays. 

‘We’ve been talking about the Vision exercise since the flood. In October last year, November, February, March, April, May, June, July – twice in July, August and October, we had briefings and workshops on this very matter – that’s on over 10 occasions. How many more times do you want to talk about this?

‘Councillor Colby stands in this chamber and talks about how this council is irrelevant and needs to lead well. Leadership is working with the community together – together to work on solutions for our future. And that’s what this consultation process enables us to do.

‘We were presented with the Christ Church model in March this year and we all agreed that was an excellent model. 

Delays, delays, delays

‘We could have been starting this process now and engaging our community in January. And we’re just delaying it and delaying it and delaying – it’s nearly two years since the flooding we have still to have a conversation with our community about vision. It’s just really disappointing. It could have been doing it right now.

It’s an excellent world-class process that has informed members of the community that are selected to match our demographic. It’s considered, it’s reasoned, and that’s the kind of input that we need as part of a whole consultation strategy that we’re engaging in nearly two years after a flood. 

‘All we want to do is engage and talk with our community together to come up with some solutions about Lismore in the future. And you’re effectively stopping it right now. Just when it’s about to launch! It’s really disappointing councils, and it doesn’t show leadership at all.’

Votes were taken on both motions – both were defeated with the fors being Councillors Colby and Rob, and the opposed: Councillors Cook, Gordon, Hall, Ekins, Jensen and Krieg.