SWAN Hill Mayor Jade Benham will step down from the council at its July meeting, due to being The Nationals’ preselected candidate for the seat of Mildura in the upcoming state election.
Robinvale-based Cr Benham said she was not required to stand down until November 2, but didn’t want to be a “distraction” from the council’s work.
“I want to maintain the integrity of council,” she said. “We’ve always maintained that we are a non-partisan council, as most rural councils are.”
Standing down was not the first choice for Cr Benham, who said with five months until the election seemed too early.
“I didn’t want to do it so soon,” Cr Benham said. “I really love the work. I love everything that comes with it. It’s hard work, it’s seven days a week, but it’s hard work worth doing.
“I look at the calendar and there are citizenship ceremonies coming up and there are meeting with different people about different aspects, particularly in Robinvale and Swan Hill with regards to health care and planning.”
Cr Benham denied there was any conflict of interest in taking votes regarding health care in Swan Hill, while running for a seat where the Liberal Party has said there needed to be a new hospital.
“I think the public perception could get a bit complex and you would have seen that already,” she said. “It’s not just Swan Hill and Mildura that are vying for new hospitals. Certainly there could be that public perception that it could be a little confusing.”
Cr Benham said there would most likely be a policy come out on councillors standing in elections, even though the state guidelines were clear enough.
“I think that it doesn’t hurt to have a procedure, even if we are over-governed by policy and procedure,” she said. “We haven’t had this happen in a long time, other than with (fellow councillor and former United Australia Party candidate) Stuart King.”
Mildura resident’s shouldn’t expect to see Cr Benham on the hustings just yet. She plans to start campaigning after the football season.
“We’ve just been through a federal election and people get campaign fatigue,” Cr Benham said. “It’ll be nice actually to just have some downtime.”
Deputy mayor Bill Moar is expected to take over Cr Benham’s duties.
