At last night’s meeting of the Bunbury City Council several Councillors expressed dismay and embarassment over a document purportedly representing the City’s position on Amalgamation with surrounding Shires. The agenda referred to the document, titled “City of Bunbury- Local Government Reform submission- September 2009”, as recommended for endorsement “as prepared”, but several Councillors felt it was in no fit state to be aired in public, let alone endorsed by Council.
During debate on an amended Motion, it was explained that State Government had provided $10,000 to the City to assist in preparing the submission, and these funds had been used to hire a consultant, and the document in question was the product of that process. After pointed criticism of the document citing grammatical errors, unreadable sentences, and general illiteracy of the document, Mayor Smith was moved to remind Councillors of the rule against open criticism of City staff during debate.
However, succeeding Councillors in the debate did not hold back on similar ascerbic comments, perhaps feeling that since the document was authored by a Consultant, they did not fall within the protection of Rule 1.4 which refers only to relationships with staff, and Mayor Smith made no further effort to restrain them.
City CEO Greg Trevaskis then sought leave to explain that the document was in fact only a draft, and hence did not reflect the standards of a final document. But his remarks only served to add another question in Councillor’s minds, as to why they were being asked to endorse a draft document “as prepared”, when it was so full of holes.
The outcome of the debate was that the document was referred to a Council briefing, where Councillor’s concerns could be discussed and possibly incorporated in the final draft. This decision was aided by the fact that the Minister for Local Government and Local Member for Bunbury John Castrilli MLA had extended the deadline for submissions from the end of September to the end of October.