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The Editor of The Beagle How meetings should be run at Eurobodalla Shire Council was recently the subject of a Code of Meeting Practice process involving a draft document, comment period, and a workshop with Councillors, community members and ESC staff resulting in the Code of Meeting Practice being adopted on 5 September 2022.

Among many other things, the Code as adopted states that: 'A Councillor may draw the attention of the Chairperson to an alleged breach of this code by raising a point of order. A point of order does not require a seconder.'

On 25 October 2022 at the Council meeting discussion on Adoption of the Draft Estuarine Coastal Management Program, contrary to the Code of Meeting Practice, a senior manager within Council staff, Lindsay Usher, interrupted the Council meeting with a point of order against one of the elected Councillors. No member of staff is entitled to raise a point of order. The role of staff within Council meetings is to respond to matters put to them directly by Councillors.

The inappropriateness of this action was not picked up by the Acting General Manager or senior governance official attending the Council meeting. The Chair was not advised by these senior staff members to not accept the point of order.

The Eurobodalla community who elected our Councillors has a right to expect that Council meetings are undertaken consistent with the rules that have recently been considered and adopted. Councillors are due respect and senior Council staff should know what is expected of them and how to behave.

Bernie O'Neil Co-convenor A Better Eurobodalla 26 October 2023

The Beagle Editor, Dear Sir, Thank you for reporting yesterday on Council Director Usher’s illegal bully boy routine at the meeting on 25 October. As your correspondent reported yesterday, his behaviour in asserting points of order against a Councillor was clearly in breach of Council’s own code of meeting practice. It is also contrary to the Model Code of Meeting Practice for Local Councils in NSW under Section 360 of the Local Government 1993 (the Act); and the Local Government (General) Regulation 2005 (the Regulation). His demeanor was clearly one of a petulant bully determined to ignore civility and subvert Council meeting processes to get his way. It is also noteworthy that the Governance officer, Mr Phillips, at the acting Mayor’s side said nothing; nor did the Acting General Manager, Ms Arthur. Yet another example of the culture of contempt by this Council’s Senior Management in their manipulation of meeting processes to meet their own agendas and not that of Councillors or the community. None of us who have observed the manipulation of meeting processes by Council Senior Management in recent years will be surprised: they are smug, arrogant and used to getting their way by all sorts of breaches of process. If there are questions raised outside Council (eg The Beagle, community organisations or individuals) then we see all sort of elaborate cover-ups and threats made against them. If Councillors wish to address Eurobodalla Council Executive’s long-established culture of manipulation and contempt for due process, they need to instruct the new General Manager to keep their promise made at the Tuross Candidates Forum last year to obtain an independent review of Council’s management and its processes. If they don’t keep their promise, the continuing abuse of process by Council Executive staff and the charade of faux consultation, inefficiency and cover-up will pursue them through their term as Councillors; and ít is what voters will remember at the next election. Best wishes, Jack Purcell