Councillor Grant Tillett's admission last week that he was a liberal party member revealed there are now four identified Liberals on our city council.
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Of more significance though was Cr Tillett's confession that in the last state election he voted against Amy Johnson, his liberal councillor colleague, preferring instead to vote for her Labor opponent.
Readers have also witnessed former liberal mayor Sam McIntosh's public spats with current liberal mayor Ben Taylor since the release of the damning ombudsman's report which saw the council CEO sacked and many other senior managers leave.
Infighting among our liberal councillors is the last thing that this city needs. After our October council elections, we need a cohesive council which can help Ballarat rebuild after COVID and the shakeup of council administration.
We need a positive, focused council to put Ballarat back on track.
Geoff Howard, Labor Candidate for Central Ward.
Labor and Greens now formally endorse candidates for council. Having candidates revealing their party membership [if any] is desirable as it provides some indication of the candidate's views. However party endorsement has some negatives.
Endorsement presumably brings support - financial or in kind with party members doing letterboxing etc. This gives endorsed candidates considerable advantages over independent candidates - who might make much better councillors in representing residents.
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Having parties endorse candidates raises the question "What will the party require in return?" Will councillors of that party vote as a block?
Do they risk not being re-endorsed for the next election if they don't support the party view?
Most parties ban members from standing against endorsed candidates. This could prevent worthwhile candidates who are members from standing while the party may instead endorse a party hack.
Councillors swear to act in the community's best interests but obviously they will differ in interpreting these interests. Many current councillors make no secret of their political persuasion, however for most this appears not to unduly influence their decisions.
Formal endorsement may change this - replacing open debate with party-line statements to the detriment of healthy local democracy.
Stuart Kelly, Ballarat.
It appears that not only does the state labor government branch stack, it now seems the Ballarat City Council is doing the same thing - blatantly telling the voters of Ballarat that they will stack the next council elections with labor candidates.
They will recycle former labor MP Geoff Howard who retired from parliament on a pension worth over a million dollars indexed for life. Appalling behaviour Geoffrey.
Now Des Hudson, are you the same Des Hudson who was once president of the Sebastopol branch of the Liberal party? Liberal one minute, Labor another. Ballarat gets what it deserves.
Danny Farrant, Ballarat.
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