LAST month, Mildura Council’s chiefs vowed to improve community engagement after survey results showed community satisfaction levels had fallen across the board since 2017.
The 2019-20 annual report showed council’s rating had consistently dropped in 57 off 66 performance categories over the past four years.
It is an alarming trend, but in a heartening response, chief executive Sarah Philpott said senior staff would be “working with the new council on a new community engagement policy and approach”.
So what happened?
This week, the new council was asked to vote on a new media policy that would further limit the ability of councillors to speak freely about council matters.
The policy was drawn up by the town hall chiefs who only a month earlier were publicly admitting that community engagement needed to improve.
But, rather than open up the lines of communication, they instead found an inventive way to try and close them down further.
Why?
What was the motive?
What had this newly elected council done in its short time in office to prompt such a level of distrust?
Fortunately, when Mayor Jason Modica called for the motion to implement the new policy to be moved at Wednesday night’s meeting, it was met with silence by all councillors. Cr Stefano de Pieri then moved an alternative motion that the policy be laid on the table. It should simply end up in the dustbin.
When asked about the new media policy this week, Ms Philpott said the changes were intended to bring councillors under the same media policy guidelines as council staff.
But this is where she gets it wrong.
Councillors are elected by the people of this municipality to be their voice inside the town hall. Elected officials are not beholden to their employer in the same way as paid staff are.
Councillors are responsible to their electorate, first and foremost, and have a duty to explain the reasons behind their decisions. They are voted in for the very fact that the community wants them to have a voice, to prosecute their case, to fight for what is needed.
We may agree or disagree with them. And that is OK. It’s called democracy.
To muzzle that voice is to lessen transparency. It lessens trust. And, sadly, that is what is increasingly occurring at all levels of government, which angers the average citizen.
In the media, we see it every day in trying to seek comment or clarification from government departments. A simple question can take days or even weeks to be answered, only for it not to be really answered at all.
Here in Mildura, we need to change that model of thinking.
What the bureaucrats inside Mildura Council need to understand is that the media and your councillors are the best eyes and ears that you have in this town.
We all want what is best for the place. We are, in essence, on the same team.
But there also has to be an acceptance of taking the good with the bad.
Sunraysia Daily publishes countless stories about council programs and projects that are bettering this community. The council does so much that is good and those stories and pictures are regular features of this newspaper. The council also employs hundreds of proud local people. We value them enormously.
No one is suggesting the senior managers don’t have a difficult task. They are running a very big enterprise, one in which every citizen is an invested shareholder.
But with that comes an increased level of scrutiny that needs to be accepted. Even embraced.
Criticisms shouldn’t be taken personally, but constructively. Alternative views should be welcomed, not shut down.
Because if you silence all the voices, how on earth can you possibly listen?
