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11/8/2005 Minister sacks Glen Eira Council.
In a surprise announcement today the state government has sacked the Glen Eira council only months before it would have gone to election anyway.
The council recently passed a motion to swap from the postal voting system that was used in their last election, to attendance voting. This was seen as a move to make it more difficult for independent candidates to get up in the coming election.
The major issue this sacking raises is what is the criteria the state government is going to use in evaluating if it will sack an elected council? This one was 'easy' for a ALP state government as the council was notionally a Liberal one, but are they going to now use the same criteria (whatever it was) for the badly run ALP ones?
SOS's position is that the state government should not sack a democratically elected council unless it has firm public guidelines AND full public consultation before the event. Even then, it should be a last resort after the exhaustion of all other options. Surely the state government can come up with other ways to make sure councils are run properly!
We realise that many Glen Eira residents will be happy to have this council removed, but would they be happy if sometime in the future the State Government removed a council they liked? (say, because it represented them too strongly against the State Governments Planning scheme, or the rising gap between what the State Government expects councils to do and the funding provided).
Ministers Press Release
Investigation: Report Summary
Investigation: Full Report
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