A new season

GEELONG has just elected a new crop of councillors. These citizens are all smiles, ready to launch our city into the future. This week they were welcomed by former councillor and current state Liberal MP Andrew Katos.

Mr Katos was upbeat about their make up but encouraged them to stay clear of factions. In his opinion there was no need for party alignment at local government level.

“At the state and federal level we do accept that party political system, but it shouldn’t be encouraged at the local level.”

Interesting advice coming from a career politician. Makes you wonder when Mr Katos had his own political conversion. Was it just after he stepped away from the council chamber or just before he decided to run for State Parliament?

Either way, it’s hard to believe that he was representing his ward apolitically. The motivation to stand for election must be driven by a desire to engage with political argument, to serve a community based on the social scaffolding that best represents your personal political views. The notion that local politics should be (or can be) unaligned is a patronising view of local leaders.

In reality, impartiality is impossible. No councillor can (or will) divorce themselves from foundation views on the way an economy should be managed, a budget allocated or a society arranged.

This was never more evident than in our last council. Three sitting councillors decided to run for State Parliament during their time in Gheringhap St. Ron Nelson, Jock Irvine and Andy Richards all nailed their political colours to the mast and stood as endorsed party candidates.

They all stayed in the chamber until the last minute, attending meetings and voting while they were actively campaigning for state elections. They all lost their contests and returned to council duties just in time to get sacked by the Andrews Government.

Our new group includes publicly announced Labor and Greens councillors and publicly-aligned Liberal Party people. It’s a fair bet political factions are going to be formed.

State Labor MP John Eren held a different view to Mr Katos.

Mr Eren commented on the lack of female representation in this new council. He’s right. The pictures show the majority of our new councillors are middle-aged male faces. Mr Eren also identified that there is an ongoing need for reform of culture, not just alignments.

“Clearly there’s a bit of history that needs to be sorted out ... hopefully some of the past practices that have been in place in local government in Geelong won’t happen.”

Time will tell if change does come.

Tomorrow night is going to be the first real public event for many of the newbies. The launching of the floating Christmas tree. The irony won’t be lost on the four councillors who were in the chamber a few years ago when then mayor Darryn Lyons was pushing his belief in the power of the floating tree.

Those were heady days of local politics. Full of factions, backstabbing, undermining and secret alliances. Lyons was a Liberal Party alignment but not a professional pollie. He grabbed for big ideas and legacy installations.

He fought for votes to support his idea for a “Mayor’s Geelong Fund”. He told the chamber that the fund would create a legacy for future generations and would define Geelong as a city.

On the night of the vote he said; “The idea of this is a passion to my heart ... It will be seen in decades and possibly centuries to come as a great achievement.”

History says he was defeated on the fund, but he won the day on his floating tree. The 2014 Annual Report included a word from the mayor. In the first paragraph he referred to the success of the floating Christmas tree.

“There’s no doubt it’s an incredible drawcard with almost 250,000 people visiting the Waterfront and CBD over this period to enjoy this and the central Geelong Christmas activities, generating an economic benefit of $18 million.”

Not sure how those figures were measured back then, but here’s hoping that Geelong can drag in another $18 million this year on the back of the now famous floating tree. Tomorrow night marks the beginning of a new council season for the city. This time, everybody will be watching. Ross Mueller is a freelance writer and playwright