Geelong Mayor Bruce Harwood is confident council supports him taking holidays in Italy before and after attending an international conference.
Cr Harwood defended the holidays after the Indy last week revealed he added two weeks’ leave to the conference trip, with ratepayers funding his return flights.
Council incurred no extra expenses from him taking leave in Italy, he said.
“Councillors voted unanimously for council to be represented by the Mayor at the (conference), as they did in 2018, with an allocated budget to do so.”
Ratepayers funded Cr Harwood’s flights to and from Italy on 6 and 26 June for the conference, which ran from 10 to 15 June.
Council also paid for his accommodation from 9 to 13 June.
Cr Harwood would present a report of the conference in “due course as is always the case with overseas travel”, he said.
He stated he initially had no plans to take leave either side of the UNESCO Creative Cities conference when council in February approved his attendance.
Months later Cr Harwood applied for leave that council approved on 28 May.
He was confident council would have approved the trip if they had known he would take leave, he said.
But councillor Eddy Kontelj, who was on leave during the February council meeting, said he would have opposed Cr Harwood attending the conference.
“I don’t think the councillors knew when they voted that the mayor would take annual leave.”
Taking leave while in Italy on ratepayer-funded flights was “not a good look”, Cr Kontelj said.
“I understand why the residents would be very concerned about that. You have to look at the way in which the public and your employees will see it.
“If it seems like and feels like it’s not right, it’s not.”
Cr Kontelj had previously voted against councillors travelling overseas and did “not see a lot of value” in such trips, he said.
Ratepayers Geelong’s Andrew Senia described Cr Harwood’s “continual overseas trips” as “unwarranted and unnecessary”.
“To add a private holiday to an unwarranted public overseas trip truly overflows the measure,” he said.
“The community at large” were against council junkets, Mr Senia said.
“No amount of public relations can justify them. The measure is in the result and so far there is no evidence of anything tangible. They must stop.”
The Indy decided against contacting Cr Harwood for comment last week because of the time difference between Australia and Italy.
The time in Italy was about 4am when last week’s story was prepared and filed.
