By Luke Voogt
The directly-elected mayor will return to Geelong if the Coalition wins the next Victorian election, State opposition leader Matthew Guy has promised.
Mr Guy made the commitment after Local Government Minister Natalie Hutchins announced Geelong would lose the popular vote.
“Geelong deserves a directly-elected lord mayor,” he said.
“The Labor Government is treating Geelong with contempt.”
Ms Hutchins announced Geelong’s councillors would choose the mayor after the next council election at City Hall on Saturday.
But Mr Guy said reverting back to the previous model would bring back “the nepotism and factional games” which had beset Geelong’s council.
“Don’t revert to a previous structure – which has failed – because there’s been one or two issues.”
Ms Hutchins announced the changes following a controversial recommendation by the Citizens’ Jury.
The State Government commissioned the Geelong Citizens’ Jury in 2016 to provide recommendations for the city’s council, including how to elect the mayor.
Initially the jury voted in favour of keeping the directly-elected mayor but was unable to reach an 80 per cent ‘super majority’.
On the third vote the jury’s organisers switched to a different voting system where the council-elected mayor option won 84 to 79 per cent.
“I think they got the answer they engineered,” Mr Guy said.
“Natalie Hutchins has presided over a complete stitch up and she knows it. This whole thing from the start has been a political exercise.”
Mr Guys said Geelong ratepayers should be able to elect their mayor and deputy mayor on the same ticket, like the City of Melbourne.
“It’s crazy that the State Government is treating Geelong like a suburb.”
But he admitted the Baillieu government, which introduced the directly-elected mayor, should have based it on the ‘Melbourne model’ in the first place.
“It didn’t have a complementary council structure.”
Ms Hutchison commended the jury for designing a “path forward that will have long-term benefits for their city.”
“We support the jury’s recommendation,” she said.
“The people of Geelong have provided their feedback on how they want the council to look and the Andrews government agrees with them.”
“The opposition can’t have it both ways now, they can’t support consulting the people of Geelong and then ignore what they say.”
Ms Hutchins foreshadowed Geelong’s council returning as scheduled in October 2017.
The changes, which include reducing Geelong’s councillors to 11 and its wards to four, will have to pass the Victorian Parliament.
Opposition sources said the Coalition would consider blocking the changes in government once they had seen the Bill.
“It is time the Government stopped dithering with their experiments in faux democracy and brought a Bill to Parliament,” said Shadow Local Government Minister David Davis.
