Politics at the grassroots

Hidden among the shock and horror of recent New South Wales government activities is an election that gets comparatively little coverage and receives only lukewarm attention from voters, despite its “real” democratic credentials.

The local government elections, to be held across NSW next Saturday, are the grassroots of politics. Historically, local government provides a nursery for party politicians seeking higher office; Mark Latham cut his teeth on Liverpool City Council, as did former NSW’s Ministers Craig Knowles and George Paciullo.

More importantly it provides us with the potential to elect “real” independent candidates to represent our interests and to keep our cities and towns the way we want them to be kept.

When we think about local councils, we think about roads, rates and rubbish. We want our potholes filled, our garbage collected and our rates to be as low as possible. In fact, viewed from that perspective, why would anyone other than ratepayers be interested in voting at the election this coming Saturday? Why would 18 to 24-year-olds, who rarely own real estate, be interested in what’s going on at local council?

Surprisingly, this year, there are more candidates in that age bracket than ever before, and it is not because they are party affiliates looking for an education. Like the rest of us, they have taken an interest in what happens in their cities and towns and come to the conclusion that they can play an active role by getting elected.

But it has not been easy for candidates this time around.

Changes to local government legislation (which incidentally, is run from state government) means candidates have this year been required to engage an agent to check on their activities and to keep track of all their resource allocation.

In the past, a struggling independent candidate might have got a few bob from a local business owner in Tamworth, or a few free pizzas from a Wagga Wagga all-nighter to feed her troops after they spent all day handing out leaflets at polling stations, all of which was undeclared.

Now the rules require all financial transactions plus all human resource allocation to be documented.

This can be easily achieved by party candidates with plenty of backup, but it is a nightmare for the struggling independent, someone who might have a great deal to contribute to a local council, but is being swamped by NSW government red tape.

Independents are the life blood of local government, but another problem they face this time around is the number of candidates contesting the ballot. Changes to the legislation require candidates who are “ungrouped” to be placed in a single column on the far right of the ballot paper. Being in this spot is pretty bad, as a large proportion of voters take the “donkey” option of voting for the first name on the ballot paper, or they vote “informal”. So candidates have formed groups, which means a lot more candidates names are on the ballot papers and a lot more time is necessary, if a voter is serious, to find out all there is to know about the candidates.

In Newcastle (64) Maitland (57) and Lake Macquarie (54) there are a total of 175 candidates across 11 wards representing Liberal, Labor, Greens, Independents and other interest groups calling themselves independents. Not all is as it seems.

Voters are expected in some cases to examine up to 50 candidates and to also cast an additional vote for a mayor. Admittedly, this is not as mind boggling as it is for voters in say, Campbelltown, where they have to select from almost 100 candidates among independents, traditional parties, and those calling themselves the “Save Campbelltown Koalas” group.

All this makes a bit of a mockery of the seriousness of local government in which serious full time officers and managers administer budgets frequently larger than some of our top 500 listed companies.

The difficulty for the voter lies in the lack of information available about the candidates and about mechanisms of voting and election. It is not enough for us to get a flyer in our letterbox from a candidate stating they are a “family man (or woman)” who has lived in the “community” all their lives, has a good job and a couple of kids. We need to know how they will engage when they are elected, how they will cope with the huge workload of being on committees and making decisions that directly affect our daily lives.

We need to know why they want to be councillors, when they are paid very little (elected representatives are part-time and paid an allowance rather than a salary), and get very little in recognisable return for their involvement.

This is why local government is rarely truly representative - it reflects the lives of those who have unlimited time to “slip out” to committee meetings, to be available for site visits, to be free to talk with council officers at all times of the day, and to spend Saturday kissing fat babies, shaking hands, and cooking snags outside the hardware shop.

It looks like the start of some interesting grassroots politics in local government.