Veteran independent councillor Mark Harris has said he will run for council again at the next local elections, which are currently due to take place in October.
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Cr Harris is an emergency doctor, who was first elected for council in 2008 and was the mayor for the last term of that council in 2011/12. He confirmed this week he would stand for reelection in the Ballarat Central ward.
He said he would be standing as a "true independent with the right qualifications".
"Health and economic prudence have never been more important."
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"As a ratepayer I understand this is not the time for extravagance but instead careful maintenance of core services and institutions."
Born and bred in Mt Pleasant, Cr Harris said he wanted ordinary ratepayers to "consider someone not in a political party to deliver some fearless common sense."
One of the most outspoken but least predictable of the current crop of nine councillors, Cr Harris described his approach to being on council as "pragmatic to the point of the boredom" when speaking to The Courier on Wednesday.
He said his own politics were mixed, although he had come from a family of Liberal voters. Economically he said he would describe himself as a "small 'L' liberal" but said on many social issues he is "way to the left".
He said he had not belonged to a political party at all while a councillor, and criticised the involvement of politics in municipal business. "It is a real corrosion in local government," he said.
While he said he understood why the Labor Party had decided to endorse their local election candidates for the first time this year, he said: "It's the place not to have politics. [Local government] does brush up against state and federal jurisdictions and you have to have an independent, Ballarat-centred view."
It's the place not to have politics. [Local government] does brush up against state and federal jurisdictions and you have to have an independent, Ballarat-centred view
- Cr Mark Harris
"In the past the major parties kept out of it, but both parties have been happy to give their potential candidates a run in local government. They're both as bad as each other."
Cr Harris, who was voted out in a surprise result in the elections of 2012 then bounced back to in 2016 with the highest number of votes for the Ballarat Central ward, said that he thought he stood a good chance of being re-elected for a third time on council.
"People in bad times might go for the comfort of the big parties," he said. "[But] I have got a reasonable shot."
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