By Luke Voogt
Ratepayers Geelong has slammed councils’ latest “junket” after it approved a $10,000 mayoral trip to an annual meeting of “creative” cities.
Group secretary Denis O’Bryan urged councillors to give up the international trips and concentrate on their “real job”.
“The world of junkets doesn’t come into it, creative or not,” he said.
“These councillors should wake up from their mysterious dream that exposure of Geelong on the world stage in distant Italy is somehow relevant to the objectives of a council.
“They should politely retire from this junket world of undefined aims and esoteric dreams. Otherwise, they are the wrong people to be our councillors.”
Council on Tuesday voted to send Cr Harwood and a staff member to represent Geelong at UNESCO Creative Cities Network’s annual meeting.
“What message does this send to ratepayers about councillor motivations?” Mr O’Bryan said.
Council joined the network in late 2017 and Cr Harwood took an 18-day, $18,000 trip for last year’s meeting in Poland.
But the delegation’s visits to waste processing centres during the trip “did a fat lot of good” to prevent Geelong’s current recycling crisis, Mr O’Bryan said.
“Now they want to hold a UNESCO spectacular in Geelong.
“At what cost to ratepayers? For what benefit? Ratepayers must get honesty and transparency.”
But Cr Harwood said Geelong’s UNESCO City of Design designation had put “us on an international stage alongside some of the world’s leading cities”.
“It gives us a huge opportunity to continue to raise our global profile, bringing business and tourism to our region,” he said.
His trip to Italy would promote Geelong to more than 180 UNESCO “creative cities”, he said.
Geelong will also host 23 events from 14 to 24 March in an expansion of Melbourne Design Week.
“Melbourne Design Week in Geelong is a major benefit that has come directly from our City of Design status, and more and more opportunities will start to flow,” Cr Harwood said.
“One of our primary aims during this year’s AGM is to build the platform for Geelong to host a UNESCO event here in the future.”
Cr Harwood attendance at UNESCO Creative Cities Network’s annual meeting, from 10 to 15 June, was an obligation of Geelong’s membership, a council spokesperson said.
