Political sideshow is taking council’s eye off rates, roads and rubbish

Core business of council is being shamefully ignored, writes Louise Bloomfield

AT a time we need strong leadership from our aldermen, members of Hobart City Council have made comments that make me wonder whether they are doing the job they were elected to do.

On Monday, during the council’s fortnightly public meeting, a councillor declared they did not run for council to take care of operational duties like roads, rates and rubbish (which is in the job description). Instead, Councillor Holly Ewin was on the council to be an advocate.

“If council’s core business was the three Rs [rates, roads and rubbish] I definitely wouldn’t have stood,” Cr Ewin said. “I think our role is always advocacy 100 per cent of the time.”

Cr Bill Harvey said: “What we’re doing here is advocating for good state policy.”

Cr Zelinda Sherlock said: “I see council’s role as more than a body tasked with roads, rates and rubbish.”

The ratepayers of Hobart, it would appear, are down by at least three representatives just when they need all hands on deck. They are already being slugged with a decade of 3 per cent annual increases thanks to the $100 million spend set out when Sue Hickey was lord mayor.

Our roads have been choked and narrowed to the point of dysfunction during peak hours. Don’t try to drive from North Hobart to Salamanca between 4.30pm and 5.45pm. The drive that should take five minutes can easily take longer than half an hour. Remember those poor commuters stuck in the Argyle St council carpark for more than four hours because the council failed to address gridlock on Liverpool St? And it gets worse. It appears our rubbish is about to hit a critical point, with apparent issues emerging with SKM Recycling. This is surely an operational issue that requires more than just advocacy. It requires strong leadership from our elected officials.

However, our council seems obsessed with concepts that are not in its scope.

The lion’s share of its precious three hours of meeting time per fortnight has been spent discussing funding for issues including an Aboriginal protest march, motions to move Australia Day, flying rainbow flags on top of CBD buildings, the attempted removal of the dignified title alderman and now to support pill-testing at music festivals. All terribly glorious concepts but completely out of council’s jurisdiction and unlikely to have any effect whatsoever on those whose job it is to make those decisions.

This political activism has consequences. For instance, the State Government, tired of waiting for council to come up with a reasonable solution to traffic congestion, boldly took Macquarie and Davey streets under its jurisdiction. Hobart council was left to argue over “street furniture” as if that somehow was as vital as allowing people a reasonable chance to get to work on time.

Of the three precious hours

council met last Monday, one hour was dedicated to pill-testing yet there was not a whisper about the monster SKM Recycling issue sitting on the back porch about to impact ratepayers.

Don’t get me started on shallow legislation dictating small businesses in Hobart must spend much more on their takeaway containers and instead use compostable products. This is ludicrous. There is no capacity in Tasmania to process these expensive containers as they are designed to be, instead they are thrown into landfill where they release a far more disagreeable amount of methane and byproducts.

Surely motions like these are a luxury to be dealt with once the real work of council is done.

It feels as though we have a troop of Neros playing their political fiddles while Hobart burns around them and, frankly, it’s selfish.

Political motions and stunts have no real outcome other than to promote a political career. Our council is being hijacked by those who aspire to state and federal government positions.

We have seen this before with Sue Hickey and Andrew Wilkie. Ratepayers deserve more than this.

We need to call it out and demand better.

All any of us ask is that the aldermen meet and deal with the issues that make our city function.

How is it that politically based motions can continually be brought up in a council meeting when they are completely outside the scope of the council’s legal function?

Perhaps the general manager should step in and ensure that only motions appropriate to the running of the city be considered and discussed.

This might ensure any political shenanigans conducted by these advocates is done on their own time when they are not being paid by ratepayers to run the city.

Perhaps then they would be more focused on the epidemic of homelessness and addressing that with some real action.