By LUKE VOOGT
A ‘Citizens’ Jury’ to shape Geelong’s next council could fail to represent the interests of residents, a former Geelong MP has warned.
Geelong’s “widely different communities” would be difficult for any single jury to represent, Peter Loney said.
“In Geelong, with this huge area we cover, it’s nowhere near homogenous.
“I’m not saying you need someone from Ocean Grove, one from Newtown and so on, but it needs to represent the different community interests here.”
The Andrews government last month appointed the newDemocracy Foundation to establish a jury to consider ward and councillor numbers and how to elect the mayor and deputy.
The group will mail 15,000 invitations to greater Geelong residents and then select 100 jury members through a random stratified draw based on census data.
Mr Loney, Labor’s former Lara MP, said the jury had the potential to recommend an ideal council structure but only if it worked off a “true blank sheet”.
“This could give us an opportunity to develop a 21st century local government model that could be a pilot for the rest of state.
“Why just tinker with it when you’ve got the opportunity to produce something better?”
But focussing excessively on questions such as “whether we can have a directly elected mayor” would be a missed opportunity for a process costing $222,000, Mr Loney said.
“A quarter of million is a fair bit. We’ve had a number of goes at this (council structure) in Geelong and we haven’t done it correctly.”
Mr Loney said the jury should also consider City Hall’s administration rather than just the councillors.
“The real big issue … is the bureaucracy.”
Foundation executive director Iain Walker said newDemocracy had a proven record of producing representative juries.
Only jury recommendations with at last 80 per cent majority support would go to the State Government, he said.
But he believed that the Government would need time to act on any jury recommendations.
“Could we create something that is the envy of the country and beyond? Yes, but it’s something that might take longer than October 2017 (Geelong’s next council elections).”
Mr Walker said the jury would focus on the area of “least trust” in councils, which was representation.
“We think we’re tackling the right first problem.”
Last week’s Indy attributed to Mr Loney a comment that changes to council structure should require a referendum. Gary Oraniuk made the comment.
