THE Mildura council is furious with the Mallee’s federal MP over false claims made on national television that its members had voted to abolish its Christian prayer at meetings.
Mayor Liam Wood says he was stunned by Nationals MP Anne Webster’s comments on Peta Credlin’s Sky News program, where the host accused the council of “tearing down traditions” and called Mildura a “woke constituency”.
Dr Webster also effectively suggested that Mildura needed new councillors and that voters should consider throwing out current members.
“We need to be really mindful of what kind of things they can put in place once they’re in there,” she told Credlin.
The Mildura Council did not, however, abolish the prayer.
Cr Jodi Reynolds raised a motion to remove it from formal proceedings on the grounds it could deter people of other beliefs from standing for local government. But members instead voted 6-3 for an alternative motion from Cr Stefano de Pieri to develop an inclusive affirmation that recognised the diversity of beliefs in the municipality.
This was reported in a front-page Sunraysia Daily story, but Dr Webster said she had taken her information from an incorrect Melbourne Herald Sun report, which that paper has since corrected.
She told Sunraysia Daily on Friday, however, that she would not withdraw her own comments, nor apologise to the council.
She also said she was happy to meet with Cr Wood to discuss the situation, despite telling him in an email, seen by Sunraysia Daily, that she saw no need to meet as both had already expressed their views.
She suggested the mayor would need to explain any benefit such a meeting would provide for either party.
Wrongly assuming the Herald Sun report was correct as she spoke on Sky, Dr Webster belittled the electoral work of councillors who supported dropping the prayer and claimed the policy was part of a wider ideological movement.
“I don’t know what work they’ve done in terms of talking to the population, but my guess is very little,” she told Credlin.
“One again, we have ‘progressive’ ideology taking the place of genuine work on behalf of constituents,” she said.
“I’ve been reading through some of the parliamentary history writing on the federal and the state use of parliamentary prayers and there is a lot of tradition there, and I don’t see why councils at a local level feel that they have the right to trash those traditions for the councillors who will be coming after them.”
Dr Webster said that “people need to start thinking very seriously about who they elect on to councils”.
“We’ve seen councils across Australia that just simply become woke … they elect woke ideologues who get on to the councils for matters that are not operational, which is what councils should be about,” she said.
“My hope is that the Mildura residents will think twice at the next election and really consider who they want to be representing them.”
Credlin told Dr Webster that she had grown up in the Mallee area (she is from Wycheproof) and that “I don’t think of Mildura as a woke constituency, but clearly it is”.
SEE THE SKY NEWS INTERVIEW HERE
Cr Wood told Sunraysia Daily he was extremely disappointed in the local MP and that he thought the region’s political representatives should be talking it up and “not tearing it down”.
He was also angry that Dr Webster had chosen to pan the council nationally without first contacting him to discuss the matter.
“Our location and our region has always been in a difficult position to get people to listen, so it’s really important that the three tiers of government work together to make sure that happens,” he said.
Cr Wood said he could not understand what had motivated Dr Webster, but he said that “I’m sure she realises that the information she did read is a mistake and has since been retracted, and it’s unfortunate that we didn’t get a call to confirm the actual story”.
“Anne knows how hard the job is being a public figure, so to personally go after (councillors) is not the right thing to do,” he said.
“There should be greater understanding there (from Dr Webster).”
Cr Wood also said that issue had consequently become “bigger than it needed to be” and that he, other council members and staff were now being distracted from their primary duties as they dealt with resident complaints based on the factually inaccurate reporting.
The mayor said he had asked Dr Webster to correct her statements, but Dr Webster told Sunraysia Daily that she would not.
Cr de Pieri, whose motion to develop a new affirmation was what council actually adopted, said he respected Dr Webster for the strength of her beliefs, but was “very disappointed” in her.
“She shouldn’t go on national television, on a show that in my opinion is just watched by angry people, and ridicule the area that she’s supposed to represent,” he said.
He also pointed out that national media had previously reported that Dr Webster was part of an informal network of politicians and other public figures with an agenda of promoting Christianity as part of the political process.
Asked by Sunraysia Daily if she thought religion and Christianity should play a greater role in public life, Dr Webster said that “I’m not even going there”.
“That’s not what I’m saying and I’m not implying it,” she said.
She defended her comments on the grounds that if only a third of Mildura people had been identified in census data as not having a religious connection, that must mean the rest did.
“I believe there are fundamental traditions in our democratic government order and processes which are helpful in reminding us that life is a bit bigger than the nitty-gritty of what we go through,” she said.
She said she would not retract her statements, nor apologise for them, and defended them as “freedom of speech”.
She had been right to make her statements, she said, because dropping the prayer “was the intent of the motion”, even though that motion was never carried.
