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Council Loses Faith In VEC. Minister Must Act: WilsonLatrobe City Councillor, David Wilson will ask the Latrobe City Council to meet with The Minister for Local Government over the conduct of the Victorian Electoral Commission review into the election By Latrobe City - 16th November 2007 - Back to News system for the Latrobe City Council.
The Traralgon based Councillor said that the Commission had "failed to engage broadly with the Latrobe Valley Community and discuss their recommendations with the Council or community members."
"It seems the VEC has undertaken the most cursory of investigations into the options available for the election of the Council, favouring the most objectionable option of proportional representation splitting the community into three wards based on Moe, Morwell and Traralgon," said Cr Wilson.
"A recipe for division, parochialism and disaster if ever there was one," he said.
"Like some others I attended the Commission's hearing of final submissions last week expecting them to give some explanation as to why they had favoured this bizarre model against the advice and expressed wishes of the overwhelming majority of the Latrobe City community."
Cr Wilson had undertaken a poll of his ward prior to his election where, he explained, there was almost unanimous support for moving past the parochial constructs of the past.
"It seems the VEC does not want to hear the views of locals," he said.
"Instead the Commission refused to engage in any meaningful evaluation of their proposal. It was an embarrassment to the process and showed a basic contempt for the local people and their views."
Cr Wilson said he was disturbed that the commission only seemed to want to hear from individuals who supported their plan; failing even to ask the most basic questions about justification or attempting to elicit any examples where significant sectors of the community had not been heard on council.
"That submissions were made by long standing opponents of amalgamation supporting the 're-division' of Latrobe City should not surprise anyone. That the VEC apparently failed to background any submission demonstrates a total lack of legitimacy or rigour," said Cr Wilson.
"Quite the opposite, when groups indicated they had been heard and represented the Commission seemed to ignore their statement either refusing to engage or worse on one occasion, as one councillor put it, 'grilled the witness’," Cr Wilson said.
The Councillor said it was not justifiable for any review committee to treat local representatives in that way and, as the Council had lost faith in the VEC, they needed to pursue the matter directly with the minister.
"He is ultimately responsible for the issue," Cr Wilson concluded.
Source: www.gippsland.com Published by: support@gippsland.com
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