You will be hearing a lot from councillors in the run up to this election. One claim by Labor’s Tweed Shire councillor Reece Byrnes that an ‘alliance between Greens, Liberals and Nationals on council’ in which they ‘teamed up to vote’ warrants a fact check. (Tweed Weekly, July 25). Luckily council meeting records are publicly available to all. Looking for evidence of this voting pattern I found nothing of the sort. It might surprise people that in the first two years of this council’s term most proposals were passed at meetings with support of a range of councillors – often unanimously.
That is, until election year 2024.
There is a pattern of behaviour that has become evident, with certain councillors acting in a way that could be described as unorthodox. At the council meeting of March 21 (at 3:09:20) staff reported on excessive use of customer service requests by councillors of up to 48 emails per day from one councillor totalling 650 emails in one month. This report described staff becoming overwhelmed with the volume of emails requiring responses and of receiving verbal criticism and questioning of their expertise, leading to stress and anxiety over their job security. Liberal Cr James Owen defended his ten to 20 such emails a day saying it was his civic duty to ask these questions on behalf of people in his community through this specialised councillor channel. Referring to regular questions that Owen had been putting on social media Independent Cr
Meredith Dennis stated (at 3:50:48) that ‘council bashing is a national sport – you will always get complaints if you invite people to put staff down’. She described it as ‘jumping the line and not the way the system is designed’. Greens Cr Dr Nola Firth pointed out that ‘its important that people are not using councillors to jump the queue which is not fair to other people who are bringing questions through the normal channels’.
Creating delays
Regardless of how these actions are viewed, the excessive number of email requests requiring responses or extra reports had the effect of slowing down staff response times as it significantly increased staff workloads. Many of these requests were about delays in council works. It seems ironic then, that this manner of questioning actually slowed things further by taking staff away from their field of expertise to respond.
At the March meeting a policy was introduced to limit councillor staff requests to 30 per month. Neither councillors Owen or his partner Liberal Cr Rhiannon Brinsmead attended workshops held prior to this meeting to consider and develop this policy.
Since then another version of questioning staff seems to have taken hold. Councillors are entitled to ask questions about the performance and operations of staff at meetings. Items that are deemed to be of high community interest are encouraged to be dealt with directly with the general manager at the time of the concern. Up until 2024 these ‘Questions on Notice’ (QONs) were used infrequently. Since staff customer requests were restricted up to ten QONs have been bought to almost every meeting by Crs Brinsmead and Owen. This is the limit allowed (April-August 2024). More often than not these questions are answered by the relevant staff member with information that is readily available in existing policies, reports or on councils’ website.
The purpose of bringing such questions into a public forum is not clear. It chews up valuable time for the normal business of councillors and adds up to 20 minutes to the length of meetings. Once again staff are called away from their normal tasks to research and report on ten QONs at the start of each meeting. It is notable that most of the questions allude to a perceived problem with council’s performance on operational matters or a complaint about the standard of certain services.
The staff responses are informed, measured and genuinely delivered. What is odd is Cr Owens’ dissatisfaction with many of the responses. One such question was at the July 18 meeting (QON #10 2:25:03) on how council monitors and reports on its customer service standards. The officer delivered a comprehensive picture of the range of existing complaints channels and the regular reviews and monitoring that is conducted. He was able to report that in comparison to other contact centres (across all sectors) Tweed Shire Council is in the top percentile with significantly lower response times than the median. He stressed that the aim is to continue to improve by developing various tools like AI powered IT systems. Cr Owens response was to negate most of the positives in this summary saying: ‘I would rather not hear what you are doing but tell me what you could be doing better’. His QON #9 (2:19:52) on the backlog of DA’s was answered with a description of significant improvements in processing times (since the flood holdups of 2021/22). He responded in the same dismissive way.
At the June 20 meeting (54:57), seven out of the ten QONs were answered by referencing existing reports, strategies or website information. Some topics – like the potential for a new 50m pool were a repeat of questions that he asked at previous (and subsequent) council meetings.
Cr Owen seems to be consistently negative about council operations, yet he does not substantiate claims of performance shortcomings with evidence – despite copious questioning of various departments. At the June 20 meeting (2:16:02) his veiled criticism burst out as a direct challenge to the performance of Mayor Chris Cherry and her leadership. On a motion on Crs pay rates he laid a variety of his gripes at her feet. These included council budget expenses, customer service, potholes and water services.
He let all of us know that he is the Mayor most people want. It is obvious that Cr Owen has been in election mode for most of 2024. However, his use of council meeting and staff time towards this purpose needs to be questioned.
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