What happens when the whale fails to adapt
I found Peter’s elucidation of the governance challenge of local government considering their monopolistic role useful and I agree with Peter’s breakdown of the role of councillors, namely:
• strategic direction
• consumer feedback
• auditing of performance and, most importantly, through the election process
• providing some exposure to competition.
What Peter failed to provide was any argument to support the notion that bigger was better.
In my view the important competitive element would be sharpened both by having a smaller number of positions and ensuring that all elected needed to have support across the municipality.
We must not lose sight of the fact that you could get a good council with 9 or 7 councillors and with or without wards. At the end of the day it is the capability of those elected that will determine how effectively a council is able to perform its directive, oversight and feedback functions.
My argument is simply that tougher competition for a position on Council will encourage more well qualified individuals to put themselves forward as candidates and, post election, result is a more effective council. Those elected will have the support of the entire electorate and will consider themselves accountable to the whole community. Given their small number, they will feel particularly honoured to have the opportunity of serving their community in this way.
Clearly there is a conflict between having a small council and one which is truly representative of the diversity in the community. In my view the way to achieve the best of both worlds is to have 6+1 councillors (maximise quality given the limited population to draw from) and no wards (ensure diversity).
Peter’s argument on wards was essentially ‘if it’s not broke don’t fix it’. But the unthinking adoption of such a philosophy would mean only ever reacting. It would be ignoring prevention and relying instead on cure, every time.
I believe we need to abolish wards as a proactive initiative to ensure Council is able to adapt to change. Change has been continuous over the last hundred years and it will continue at an accelerated rate into the future. In the last 20 years communications technology developments have radically changes how we live our lives. We have a much higher living standard, but our time is even more precious. Our community is much more diverse, more mobile and we have much wider horizons. The way in which we get involved with community issues has changed. The relationship between the tiers of government has changed and the challenges faced by our communities have changed dramatically. It would be remarkable if what was optimum in terms of electoral arrangements one hundred years ago remained the best solution in today’s very different circumstances.
Abolition of wards and reduction of the number of councillors are just two of a whole string of reforms that this council has pursued in order to adapt to the changes outlined above, all of them widening the opportunity for community input to decision making and tapping into professional expertise within the community. The most significant has been the replacement of councillor consideration of individual DA’s by consideration by a professional body with community representatives (the MDAP). In addition, community members with relevant professional expertise have been appointed to working groups looking at asset management, bicycle infrastructure, internal audit and the Spit Junction master plan. Council is pioneering the use of deliberative democracy techniques as a means of community consultation and has been at the forefront of using the web and social media to continually improve its engagement with the local community. Residents use email to communicate with councillors and councillors are increasingly using blogs, Facebook and Twitter to communicate with the electorate,
There is always a danger with any reform that you might “throw the baby out with the bathwater’. I agree with Peter that we would not want to lose the ‘warmth’ of the connection between residents and their local councillor, even though the primary ward issue, DA’s is no longer dealt with by councillors. This direct connection with a particular councillor could still be made with no wards by the elected councillors simply dividing up the suburb and each taking on the role of “duty councillor” for a particular district. It is this ‘warmth’ in the relationship between local councillors and the community that will ensure that dedicated well known independents will, in Mosman at least, always defeat candidates put up by, and beholden to, political parties.
Peter has misjudged me with his claim that I am ‘indifferent to public opinion’. I don’t think the community is apathetic nor do I think they are ill-informed, but I do think that they allocate their time strategically and that on some issues they would prefer their elected representatives to do the research and make the decision. I had to ask myself is this such an issue or is it one in which the community is really prepared to deeply engage and would wish to voice their opinion via a referendum? Was it an issue of such significance that the community was also prepared for council to allocate the necessary resources to explain the issue and conduct the referendum?
I decided that the responsible course was for Council to listen carefully to what those interested enough to make a submission had to say, but in the end make the decision on behalf of the community the basis of the arguments advanced, in other words follow the normal process of decision making in a representative democracy.
Some of the considerations that caused me to adopt this position were
• during its term so far, this council has shown itself capable of voting in necessary reforms even when they are against their own personal interests (for example relinquishing DA consideration)
• despite extensive publicity inviting input on the issue using many different print and social media channels only 0.1% of the electorate responded via submissions and these were close to evenly balanced for and against
• when people are considering moving into the area, the number of councillors and whether or not there are wards are never a consideration, ie it is not a big issue
• many Mosman residents don’t know which ward they are in or who their ward councillors are
• almost all of the issues that now come before council affect the entire LGA, they are not ward specific.
• when residents have an issue that they want councillors to take up on their behalf they normally email all councillors
• I am not aware of any instance in the history of local government in NSW where there has been a push by residents to increase the number of councillors or introduce wards. Arrangements in each LGA are there more by default than deliberate intent
• Mosman currently has more politicians per resident and less area per ward than almost any other council in Sydney
• the sub-text of the state government’s Local Government 2036 document seems to be ‘initiate your own reforms if you want to avoid having reforms thrust upon you’
I also had to ask myself whether the group who came to the council meeting and spoke against the proposal were a truly representative group or a noisy minority group with a particular axe to grind.
I am not asserting that what occurred in the gallery and via the submissions was anything other than the normal democratic process, but I did note that those actively opposing the reform were very much the same group that mounted a massive, and sometimes very unpleasant, campaign against the introduction of parking meters at Balmoral Beach.
As to their claim that everyone they asked was opposed to the reform as evidenced by the signatures they collected on a petition I can only report my own experience where very person I asked agreed it was a useful and necessary reform. I discount both my and their experience asking people as I think when you raise an issue like this and ask for an instant response the response you will get is what people think you want to hear.
Photo credit: Don Radford
