Council has listened, your questions are a ‘must’

Just about no one on Phillip Island wanted to spend $27.2 million on the Cowes Cultural and Community Centre.

Almost everyone agreed a few million dollars spent on a renovation of a perfectly workable facility would have been enough.

And by any measure, the $676,000 that the Bass Coast Shire Council is considering spending on the Anderson Road carpark for the part-time Cowes Boat Ramp is excessive.

There was also the issue of the $7.7 million shared pathway between Inverloch and Wonthaggi where the council didn’t even produce a feasibility study and trotted out years’ old consultation about the Bass Coast’s Aspirational Network Pathways Plan from 2015-16 to justify the project.

Most of the time when the Bass Coast Shire undertakes ‘community consultation and engagement’ they’re just ticking the box for a decision they have already made. We all know that.

We see it time and time again and those committed to getting the council to change its mind have to launch petitions and comprehensive campaigns just to get council to listen.

The community had to do it again when elements on the council and its administration wanted to do away with ‘Question Time’ at the monthly council meeting as a result of some woke interpretation of ‘workplace safety’.

The Bass Coast Ratepayers and Residents Association took it on as a major issue and members of the community got involved as well. Here’s what one of them had to say during the consultation process on the draft Governance Rules:

“I am strongly opposed to the proposed change to the Governance Rules concerning Public Question Time. Surely it is a basic right of all residents to be heard by the people who elected them. Question

Time should be open and transparent and available to all residents of the Shire.”

Hear, hear!!

So, thankfully the council has listened this time and made it a ‘must’ that question time be a key part of the agenda at every Ordinary Council Meeting, but the council is still retaining the right to rule out questions they don’t like, as follows:

“Not all questions are required to be read at the meeting. Any question which has been disallowed by the Chair will not be read at the meeting.”

Council needs to expect a robust exchange of views with the community over such contentious issues as special charge schemes. In fact, they should genuinely encourage it and facilitate it.

Receiving the occasional abusive letter is regrettable and the community must be respectful at all times, but the reality is, it’s going to happen every now and then. It goes with the territory.