City of Ballarat councillors have voted down a policy which some argued would be "undemocratic".
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In the March meeting, councillor Ben Taylor introduced a notice of motion for councillor officers to present a report using Mount Alexander Shire's recently adopted Formal Positions of Council policy.
The draft was brought before council at the meeting held Wednesday, April 24.
After a lengthy debate, mayor Des Hudson said council needed to be able to openly advocate for its diverse community.
"This started from a notice of motion on a humanitarian issue," he said, referring to councillor Belinda Coates' March notice of motion to support a ceasefire in Gaza/Palestine.
Cr Hudson said from that supported motion, he sent off an email with an attachment.
"That was it," he said.
"It was not a great deal of time, effort or expense."
The policy detailed how the council would not establish a formal position or undertake advocacy on a specific matter that is "the subject of a referendum at a state or federal Government level" or are "international in nature and over which council has no legislated authority or responsibility" or "considered by the mayor and chief executive officer to be too remote from the circumstances of the City of Ballarat's ratepayers and residents and therefore, to have relatively low direct impact on them."
Cr Hudson said as a council, they needed to represent "all parts, all people".
He said the policy could lead to forgetting people and local government should never forget people.
"Council should be about everyone," he said.
Cr Hudson said he respected all the councillors in the chamber and they were adults who could self determine the merit of something.
More than one councillor said "if you don't like it, don't vote for it."
Some even suggested people could run for council if they seriously opposed the actions of council.
The submitters supporting its adoption had concerns around council losing focus on local issues and wasting resources.
Submitters against the policy were concerned over its restrictions.
One said it was "making a mountain out of a molehill", referring to only three notices of motions regarding international matters - nuclear arms, Ukraine war and Gaza, that had come before council in the past four years, amounting to a few hours of council's time.
Councillor Daniel Maloney said the policy was like "taking a sledgehammer to an ant".
A last-minute change was made to the draft policy on Wednesday morning, ahead of the evening meeting.
One councillor criticised the policy being a "cut and paste" of a council whose community very different from Ballarat's, with a much smaller population and older average age.
The motion lost with five against and four for the draft policy.