Welcome to my second post since becoming mayor again. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the past month, particularly the additional opportunities to attend local events and meet more people in our community.
Firstly, a very warm welcome to our newest councillor, Nga Hosking, who has replaced Stefanie Perri in Oakleigh Ward. Nga is the first person of Cook Islands descent to be elected to public office in Victoria and we were honoured to have a traditional Cook Islands cultural ceremony in the Council Chamber to welcome her as a new councillor in Monash.
Secondly, in my first column last month since becoming mayor again, I wrote about how I was determined to improve councillor and public gallery behaviour at our meetings. This was in response to recent meetings where there had been a noticeable decline in standards of behaviour.
Just one month later, I am pleased to report there has been immediate and dramatic improvement.
As I foreshadowed, I proposed measures to lift behaviour in the council chamber including a much strengthened Councillor Code of Conduct and new supplementary standing orders to focus councillors on transacting business more efficiently at meetings. These measures are the toughest councillor conduct regime ever implemented by a council in Victoria.
Some aspects of these reforms attracted wider media interest such as a new requirement for how councillors must signal points of order. These changes had an immediate impact. While previously our meetings were frustrated by inane points of order, following Council’s adoption of these reforms, we did not have a single point of order.
I thank all councillors and members of the public gallery who without exception were impeccably behaved. After recent meetings finishing as late as 3.00 am, this meeting finished before 11.00 pm despite being one our biggest agendas ever. It is great to have everyone’s focus back on debating the issues rather than points of order.
I am also pleased to report that Council accepted my recommendation to appoint Russell Hannan as an independent governance and behaviour monitor. He will monitor our meetings until the end of the year and provide recommendations on further improvements which can be made to how our meetings function. As a former Waverley mayor and councillor and the current Treasurer of the Victorian Liberal Party, Russell Hannan is well placed to comment objectively and authoritively on the effective functioning of our meetings and my performance as chair.
As always, please do not hesitate to get in contact with me if there is anything I can assist you with in relation to Council. Just call or – even better – send me an email, tweet or letter.
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