By SP Councillor, Stephen Jolly
Tuesday night saw at the first Yarra Council meeting for 2008. It was dominated by a debate on the failed new policy to effectively offload resident noise and public behaviour concerns onto a disinterested and distracted police force.

This policy was introduced last year by the Planning Department and unfortunately supported by most of my fellow Councillors.

The policy has also led to the ending of the post of Public Behaviour Officer and the use of expensive private detectives to do the job previously done by the Noise Management Officer. The policy incorporates using contractors over directly employed staff, greater use of phone help over human help, and a further reduction in Council service to the community.

The results, for residents, have been an explosion in bad behaviour by rogue pubs and clubs. The results, for traders, have been the loss of a helping hand from Council staff to guide them through noise reduction strategies and relevant laws. In the short-term this means they get away with more, but in the long term may get severe punishment in the form of big fines or loss of their licence.

In the last few days there has been a growing community rebellion on the issue. I have received emails of outrage and demands for a return to the previous system from 5 hotels, 3 resident organisations and nearly two dozen residents.

I have been helping the charge to end this failed experiment. On Tuesday I successfully moved a motion that asked senior officers to prepare a balance sheet of the new strategy which will be tabled and debated at the next Council meeting in March. This will provide an opportunity to get change and there will be a big mobilisation of residents and hotels to support such a move.

Attendance voting or Postal voting?

The ALP pushed for postal voting for the upcoming Council election. They prefer it as it allows cashed-up candidates with little active community support (a la the ALP or traders candidates) to flood homes with literature.

The Socialist Party supports attendance voting. The ALP hid behind the argument that postal voting leads to a higher percentage of people voting. This, at best, is a technical attempt to deal with a political problem. Low turnout reflects dissatisfaction with the parties on offer. This must be dealt with politically. When it’s a bunch of neo-liberals standing, many people vote with their feet and stay at home.

One Green Councillor explained that in State and Federal elections voters can vote out of their area (if on holiday or at work for example). This is not allowed at Council elections. In the last Federal election 10% of people in this area voted ‘out of area’. If this number was added to the number of people who voted in the last Council election, the voting figures are about the same as in Federal and State elections, smashing the central but fake argument of the ALP that attendance voting at Council elections has a lower turnout.

Postal voting, often involving a number of envelopes, is complicated and much more open to fraud. The privacy of voting inside a polling booth is replaced with voting at home which can in some instances lead to undue influence on a voter by their parent, or dominant figure in a household.

A whole number of Councils in South Australia and Victoria are now moving back to attendance voting.

For socialists, we fight for greater involvement of ordinary people in politics – not the atomisation and disconnection of postal voting. A postal vote relies almost solely on printed material for their information about candidates and parties. An attendance voter becomes part of a collective process where thousands of people turn up to a booth and have an opportunity to talk to party workers and even candidates.

There is a clear 5-4 majority on Council for attendance voting (3 Greens, 1 Socialist, 1 independent vs 3 ALP and 1 independent). However one Green Councillor was absent and the vote was 4-4. Despite originally voting with the ALP, the current Mayor independent Judy Morton, refused to use her casting vote as Chairperson to drive through such an important change taking advantage of a sick Councillor. So in the second vote, the drive for postal voting was defeated 5-3. However the following day, the ALP tabled a rescind motion for the March meeting, aiming once again to drive through postal voting next month.

Council election

We need you to help. We want more SP Councillors so we don’t have four more wasted years. Imagine what we could do for children’s services, reforming the planning department, on the environment, for sports facilities etc. That starts with getting me re-elected, which the major parties and bureaucrats will do everything to stop.

We need your time to letterbox and help on election day (November 29th) and your money to finance the campaign. For now talk to your neighbours and friends and get them to vote for our team rather than the status quo. Ring 96399111 or email us if you can help in any way.