By LUKE VOOGT
A Citizen’s Jury could recommend that Geelong residents lose their mayoral vote, according to newDemocracy Foundation executive director Iain Walker.
He refused to rule out the possibility on Wednesday during a stakeholder meeting on how the jury would review Geelong’s council structure.
“If that’s what the jury recommends, there’s no editing,” he told the Indy.
The Andrews government last month appointed the newDemocracy Foundation to establish a jury of 100 residents to consider ward and councillor numbers and how to elect the mayor.
“We’re going to ask people a fairly straight-forward question – how do you want to be represented?” Mr Walker said.
“We’re not showing people a solution. Directly elected mayor, not directly elected mayor, I don’t have a view.”
Former Geelong councillor Ron Nelson questioned the need for the $221,750 jury.
The Victorian Electoral Committee (VEC) had already reviewed council’s structure with public consultations at a cost of $500,000, he said.
Mr Walker said the jury represented a move from public opinion to “public judgement”.
The time allowed for deliberations would provide for informed decisions rather than reflex answers to phone poll questions at dinner time, he said.
“If 100 people could find some common ground, having read this, having interrogated it, would you trust them?”
The jury would spend a month pre-reading and three full Saturdays of considerations in November, Mr Walker said.
Former Labor Lara MP Peter Loney attacked the jury at the meeting, saying any major changes to council structure should require a referendum.
But Mr Walker called referendums “horrendous tools”.
“Everyone complains about how we do democracy and this is a new approach.
“A lot of the time people think government is something done to them, not for them or by them.
“I’d say to people pick a horse – if you want business as usual then we’re the wrong option.”
