NEWS DESK LABOR candidate for Dunkley Jodie Belyea (right) and Liberal candidate and Frankston mayor Nathan Conroy (left) with former Dunkley MP Peta Murphy, and Frankston’s 2023 citizen of the year Warwick Exton in January last year. Exton died in July, and Murphy died in December. Picture: Supplied
Council election year ‘satisfaction’ survey Keith Platt keith@mpnews.com.au
Majors choose Dunkley candidates Brodie Cowburn brodie@mpnews.com.au THE major parties have locked in their candidates for the Dunkley byelection. The death of sitting Labor MP Peta Murphy in December left the seat of Dunkley vacant. On Thursday 11 January, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese confirmed that Jodie Belyea would be Labor’s candidate and on Sunday the Liberal Party chose Frankston mayor Nathan Conroy as its candidate. Belyea is the founder of the Women’s Spirit Project, an organisation offering a free 11-week program for women who have experienced family violence, mental health issues, poverty, and unemployment. The program has run on the Mornington Peninsula and in Carrum. Albanese, backed at the press conference by Peta Murphy’s husband
Rod Glover, said Belyea would “continue to build on [Murphy’s] legacy”. “No two people are the same. But they do remind me of each other in that they are both fighters, they’re both strong advocates,” Albanese said. “Jodie is certainly not a career politician. She’s someone who, I think, is the right fit for this community to be a strong advocate.” Belyea told reporters on Thursday that she was “very fortunate to meet the late and great Peta Murphy through my work supporting women experiencing disadvantage through the Women’s Spirit Project”. “I am not going to necessarily be Peta, but I am going to lean into her legacy,” she said. “I have big shoes to fill, and over the next few weeks you are going to see me campaigning on the cost of living, health and medicare, and affordable housing.” Irish-born Conroy has been mayor of Frankston for three consecutive terms. He is an effective campaigner,
having been elected to council in 2020 comfortably ahead of his closest challenger. He said “it’s a privilege to serve as mayor of Frankston City. But there is so much more to be done to deliver for this community and that’s why I’ve put myself forward for Dunkley”. “I will always listen and I will work hard to ensure this community remains a wonderful place to live, work, raise a family and retire,” he said. “I wish it wasn’t in such sad circumstances. Peta Murphy was both fearless and tireless in advocating for her community.” If Conroy wins the by-election and resigns from council, a countback of the 2020 election results would be held to appoint a new councillor. After the new councillor is sworn in, councillors will convene to elect a new mayor. A date for the Dunkley by-election is yet to be anouncemed.
THE first quarterly community satisfaction survey for 2024 will be held across the Mornington Peninsula late this month and in early February. Residents will be phoned and visited door-to-door and asked to answer questions about Mornington Peninsula Council services by Metropolis Research. The outcome of the survey could influence the election campaigns and voters’ opinions of candidates in the October council elections. The elections will also be notable as the shire will be then have 11 singlecouncillor wards, with five new ward names being added to the existing six. The mayor Cr Simon Brooks said “feedback” from the survey was “integral” to how council services were delivered across the peninsula. A news release from the shire stated that survey “has been designed to assess our ongoing performance to identify areas of service improvement”. The 400 interviews in the 15-minute survey would be conducted with a “representative sample of residents”. Metropolis Research officers would carry an ID card and Metropolis Research shoulder bag and “will not enter your home, nor will they ask to use your toilet, ask for a drink”. “The survey will take up to 15-minutes to complete and we will use the feedback to assist us in improving our
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17 January 2024
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services to the community,” the news release stated. Council’s decision to appoint Mertropolis followed two consecutive years of poor satisfaction survey results. This month’s survey comes on the heels of widespread opposition to councillors agreeing to allow an interactive Harry Potter-based event in the wildlife sanctuary at The Briars, Mount Martha and their debates over establishing a costly “transparency and integrity hub” (All clear for transparency hub, The News 8/1/24). The surveys which showed the poor results for the shire were made on behalf of the Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions (Shire again misses survey satisfaction, The News 21/6/23). The results of the next four surveys - including the one starting this month – will be sent to the department for its annual municipal perfortmance report. The shire was rated at an “all-time low” in 2022, with the following survey registering an overall performance score of 50, three less than in the previous one. When appointing Metropolis in mid-2022 then mayor Cr Steve Holland said it was “simply a new provider using a slightly different methodology to do the same annual survey” (‘Satisfaction’ surveys start this week, The News 11/7/23). Previous results for the shire at: mornpen.vic.gov.au/communitysurvey
