Cobar residents will not get the opportunity
to decide whether they want fewer
councillors after a move to reduce the
number of elected representatives from 12 to
nine failed to gain enough support at last
week’s Council meeting.
Councillors considered the proposal at their
September Ordinary Meeting following a
Notice of Motion from Cr Miranda Fry calling
for Council’s numbers to be reduced.
Had the proposal proceeded, the matter would
ultimately have needed to be put to Cobar Shire
electors at a referendum, giving residents the
final say on whether they wanted to retain 12
councillors or reduce the number to nine.
Instead, councillors voted against progressing
the proposed reduction, meaning the question
will not be put before ratepayers at a
referendum.
Cr Fry spoke for the motion at last week’s
meeting saying she believed the move to reduce
the number of councillors to nine would be in
Council’ s best interest.
“I did do canvassing of other councils, general
managers and mayors who all have lower
council numbers and they were in favour of any
reduction, it’s worked well for them, and they
were much bigger [councils] than us,” Cr Fry
said.
“It’s really important in my mind that at the
next election, there actually is an election.”
(The current group of councillors were
appointed to their roles after there were only 12
nominations for the 12 positions and so they
were automatically elected.)
Cr Bob Sinclair led the charge to block the
motion saying that he felt reducing the number
of councillors would be detrimental.
He said historically the State Government
tried to force them to reduce to nine councillors.
Cr Sinclair said they could end up being
swallowed up in “super councils” as had been
the case in Victoria and that could have an
adverse affect on funding allocations.
He believes the current Council has a good
mix of representation of the shire and reflected
different interests including sport, arts, business
etc
“If we go to nine councillors, we will not have
rural councillors,” Cr Sinclair said.
He said reducing the number of councillors
would make it harder for rural councillors like
himself to be elected by popular vote.
“I was always the last one to get elected on a
ticket,” he said.
“I had to rely on the votes to flow down on the
ticket.”
“The next battle will be going back to six
[councillors].
“I think we’re doing a very good job of doing
it, and I hope it continues.”
Cr Fry responded that she believed Cr Sinclair
had served Cobar Shire well for many years and
would be voted in on his own merits.
She challenged that rural nominees, like town
nominees, should go out and canvas for votes.
Cr Fry said she was disappointed that the
matter wouldn’t be going to the community as
she believed it was ultimately their decision to
make.
Cr Fry’s motion was only supported by Cr
Chris Deighton and Cr Wayne Phillips with Cr
Sinclair and five other councillors voting
against the motion
