First-class debate not plane sailing
SHOULD the Mayor fly first-class, paid for by the ratepayer? It’s a great pub test question. Another is “why aren’t any of our councillors taking overseas business trips”.
Travel entitlements and whether the Mayor and others at council should be taking more on first or business-class – well, it’s all creating real turbulence inside City Hall.
A new quarterly travel report shows Mayor Tom Tate and some senior staff had more than $80,000 of expenses for a trip to London, Birmingham and Paris in March.
Reporting on expenses for the Mayor’s most recent trip, which coincides with the Birmingham Commonwealth Games, is yet to be made public.
Leaving for the most recent Games trip, the Mayor was spotted on departure at Brisbane airport. He travelled across in first-class, returned in business-class.
Business operator and professional pot stirrer Nicolle Archer offered commentary. With rate bills arriving by post, she suggested the council be more “frugal” with its spending.
So let’s be reasonable about the outcomes from the latest trip. The Mayor says it will create business benefits worth “millions” to the city.
In two weeks, expect an announcement about having signed a major education conference for next year. This will bring together the best educators in the world. We need to promote education as a major employment tier.
But back on the ground, watching debate at this week’s governance committee and later talking to several council insiders, this much is obvious:
• The Mayor is not breaking any rules by travelling first-class on the ratepayer ticket.
• Many of his colleagues do not believe flying first-class passes “the pub test”.
• The consensus is it should be business-class – they need room to prepare for meetings.
• Several councillors want to start representing the city overseas on issues passionate to them.
• Travel entitlement guidelines are confusing and need reviewing.
Councillor Pauline Young asked officers: “What level of travel does the city cover going forward. Is it business-class, first-class – what do we get reimbursed?”
The response was the expenditure policy for travel does not specify any class for the Mayor.
An officer told Cr Young: “It specifies in the policy, travel for councillors and the staff policy dictates what travel for staff.”
Governance committee chair William Owen-Jones suggested given the councillor expense and reimbursement policy was currently “silent” on some matters, it needed to be revisited.
He told colleagues: “So to the challenge I suppose that we have is just making sure we get the best value for money for ratepayers – and if anybody has driven that mantra it’s the mayor. In his first term he contributed (from his own pocket) $100,000 for travel.”
Deputy Mayor Donna Gates diplomatically suggested “probably worth having a conversation with the Mayor about it”. This would occur before full council on Tuesday. These conversations are a bit uncomfortable, aren’t they? Like Steve Martin and John Candy travelling in Planes, Trains and Auto-mobiles. We all need to get on the same bus here. It’s about promoting the city. We can then celebrate the wins and all dine out on return home on the turkey at Thanksgiving.
TOMORROW’S PAPER: MAYOR’S COLUMN