David Kerslake
Change Commissioner                                                                         From Ron Owen
Queensland Change Commission                                                     24 Mc Mahon Rd
GPO Box 1393                                                                                          Gympie, 4570
BRISBANE QLD 4001                                                                           QUEENSLAND

 Re- Review of Gympie Regional Council Electoral Arrangements

SUBMISSION

Dear Sir
Please take note that ‘my will’ and ‘my wish’ are that at all future elections of the Gympie Regional Council that the region is ‘divided’ into equal ‘electoral divisions’.
I have read the Submissions from the Gympie Regional Council and find that they are not researched, self interested, un substantiated, lightweight flim flam, that has been concocted to cover up the two main issues of contention.

1. Since the un divided Council was introduced it has allowed councillors to be anonymous, shifting all responsibility to other councillors for their responsibility to represent, or RE present the persons issue to Council. The result of this is no debate in Council, no representative voice for the people in Council. All decisions made the day before at the closed meetings. This is un constitutional and not within the spirit of our electoral System.

2. The current councillor’s Dyne, Perrett, Watt, Friske, Neilsen and Petersen made the decision and voted in the afternoon on the  1st of August 2007 after it was explained to them the Re- election advantages of having no divisions, such as, non- councillor candidates do not have a media profile over all the 7000 square kilometres, or contacts to man polling booths over this huge area. The cost to compete for an ‘unknown candidate’ is prohibitive when Councillors have been well paid for the last four years to travel and campaign for re-election over all this massive area. This is un constitutional and not within the spirit of our electoral System.

In councils submission they claim, “Councils can suffer from a lack of unity”. I have never noticed that there is any requirement for our parliamentary system to be unified, in fact it cannot work unless it is competitive. Councillors have no duty to other Councillors, or the Council  itself, it only has a duty to represent the constituents individually and as a whole. It requires Councillors to speak out and debate. That system has served the western world well. Where the opposite, communist countries run their government meetings in the same way as our current unified council, operates unapproachable, in secret, in silence and in unity. A unified totalitarian dictatorship.

In councils submission they claim, “The current undivided system allows for a sharing of the
burden of travel throughout the Region by all Councillors”. It may ‘allow’ but it supplies no proof that it is actually happening these days. They are all well paid, supplied with their own vehicles to travel throughout the Region. Interested Councillors in the last divided term, when Councillors were only paid one day a week, who were not supplied with any travelling expenses or a vehicle travelled extensively throughout the region and visited the residents. Council have not supplied any grounds at all, as to why this would not reoccur in a divided council.

In councils submission they claim, “Two former Councillors and two CEOs from the pre-amalgamated Councils with exposure to both systems commented that an undivided Council is more beneficial for GRC.” I am a retired Councillor, and I know many other retired councillors who have been exposed to both systems that agree that a divisional council represents the residents more effectively. Strangely the only Councillors that support non divisions are the encumbering councillors. The only two CEO’s from the pre amalgamated Councils have been ‘paid off’ by council, is this part of their package deal?

They Killed Divisions and Conquered for Themselves.
On the afternoon of Wednesday 1st of August 2007 this Region lost a valuable divisional system that had worked very well for this area in the past. It was lost due to the orchestration efforts of some councillors using the incentive of a re election promise. Greed. The rural areas of the shire suffered a huge disenfranchisement of their Local Council votes.
The vote went 12 to 9, Councillors Jan Watt, Larry Friske, Donna Nielsen, Ian Peterson, Mick Venardos, Col Chapman, Tony Perrett and Ron Dyne were all part of the group that voted away our voting rights.
Which of the eight Councillors do the 31,000 voters approach and what is the response. ‘Sorry Im busy, on a matter on the other side of the shire, we have to look after 7000 square kilometres, try one of the other councillors.’ Or, ‘put it in writing and it will be attended to as soon as possible,’ or perhaps the phone call will be routed to India or the computer. Or ‘If your problem is roads press button ‘1′, ‘if it is sewerage press button ‘2.’ The identity, the person, the voter is lost.
“The people we represent know that small is more efficient,” Professor Allen said at the LGAQ conference on the Gold Coast he said, Speed, not size is what determines efficiencies and you don’t get speed through larger bureaucracies” All empirical evidence suggests that big is not better when it comes to Local Government. At the same conference Mr Hallam said,  “Our point has been that people must have the democratic right to be heard on such a fundamental political change to the way their towns and cities are run”. So you, the Electoral Commissioner, do not give us the right to vote on this issue, you do a survey call for submission and you make the decisions not the people.

Electoral Divisions “Wards” are part of our nations representative system set down by our forefathers most of it enshrined in our Commonwealth Constitution.
The first divisions are the States themselves, then we have federal electorate divisions and State electorate divisions and Local government divisions. The purpose is to ensure that voters share a commonality of numbers proportionate to interest and infer structure. These are part of our voting RIGHTS and at all stages of government, all formulated on divisions.
Most councils chose divisional voting where there is a shire consistency of alternate both High populations and Low density populated areas, as this has been seen as fair to all concerned.
If the federal system had, no divisional representation Australia s government would be controlled entirely from Melbourne and Sydney. If the State had no divisions, Brisbane would have complete control.
When divisions are removed, the outcome, is that total control is centralised in the highly populated area. The organisational and monetary consideration will ensure that the promotion of candidates will reside within the most political influential areas and groups. As now the city of Gympie will prevail and have sole priority over all other rural considerations.
Local issues, identifiable to streets and small communities are the ‘grass roots’ issues the whole reason for Local Government. The issues with services in the past, concerned a representative who can identify with the residents in the local area. The current councillors know they have a huge advantage with a gilt-edged free media profile, they know that their names will be recognised on the voting form, they know that recognition is beyond the means for an average unknown to successfully campaign against them.

Please rectify this electoral and constitutional travesty as soon as possible.

Yours Sincerely

Ron Owen JP (Qualified)