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Tuesday 6 February 2024
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Cold water cause
A brave group of swimmers has been jumping into the cold water at Oliver’s Hill each day to raise awareness for suicide prevention. See story page 4. Picture: Gary Sissons
‘Leadership crisis’ damaging council Brodie Cowburn brodie@baysidenews.com.au FRANKSTON councillors have called for acting mayor Liam Hughes to resign amid what they call a “leadership crisis”. With mayor Nathan Conroy on leave contesting the Dunkley by-election for the Liberals, deputy mayor Liam Hughes has been appointed the acting mayor. Hughes has been overseas, leaving Frankston Council without a present leader. Last week, a majority of Frankston councillors passed a no confidence motion against Hughes demanding he step down to allow someone else to fulfill the mayoral responsibilities. Hughes contacted councillors soon afterwards informing them he would not be standing down and would be returning to the deputy mayor role in early February, The Times understands. Councillors told the 29 January meeting, which Hughes did not attend, that the acting mayor was not responding to emails and had failed to attend meetings remotely despite saying he would do so. Councillor Sue Baker, who unsuccessfully ran for mayor in November, said Frankston Council has “a leadership problem - a leadership crisis I’d go as far to say - which is leading to a governance crisis.” “We actually have no certainty about whether councillor Hughes is returning, or when he is returning, or where he is,” Baker said. “We have had consultation with our lawyers to understand what options we have as a group of councillors to effectively, pragmatically, within good governance practice, deal with this situation. We find we have no [other] levers to deal with this. “We are concerned as a group of councillors that given we are a large municipality - 145,000 residents, a $290 million budget, $2 billion of assets under management - that it’s really important that we have
a leader the be the figurehead, the go-to, the point of contact for everything that we aspire to do and need to do.” Liam Hughes told The Times he plans to return, and blamed the mayor’s decision to run for federal politics for the situation. “I am deeply disappointed at the vote. The mayor’s unexpected decision to run for a higher political office is the reason for this disruption to council, not my decision to take annual leave over the summer break. If I had been given any warning at all, alternative plans could have been made,” he said. “Whilst the mayor has been praised by the councillors for abandoning his role and commitment to Frankston residents, these same councillors have attacked me for the legitimate use of annual leave. This double standard is accentuated by the fact that if the mayor succeeds he breaks his commitment - made in November - to represent the residents of Frankston as mayor, whilst I’ll return to continue my role to represent Frankston residents guaranteed.” Frankston Council says that Hughes has not been on a leave of absence during this time. Conroy has faced criticism from ratepayers too for taking leave from council to contest the by-election. He has defended his decision, telling The Times that “we have an excellent group of hard-working councillors who give me full confidence in council’s ability to perform its functions during this time.” “I have taken leave as mayor during this campaign period as I previously committed to doing. This approach is consistent with that taken by others such as Labor’s Kristy McBain during the Eden-Monaro by-election. It is also the approach taken at the recent Mulgrave by-election. I will not be receiving mayoral allowances during the campaign period,” Conroy said. Continued page 3
