An astute reader has raised a very interesting point about Tuesday night’s council meeting. It concerns the little private tete a tete between Newton and Okotel when both left the chamber. Okotel was seeking ‘advice’ after being challenged by Delahunty. Newton presumably provided this ‘advice’. This raises countless questions in itself:
- We do not remember such an incident ever taking place in Glen Eira before. The ‘normal’ course of events is that all ‘advice’ has been provided in chamber and usually by Burke. Why was this conducted outside of chamber?
- Could the question of potential conflict of interest be applied to Newton himself since he was an integral part of the ‘negotiating team’ for the ‘agreement’ which involved crown land in the centre of the racecourse?
- Okotel’s explanation featured conversations that took place in the pre-meeting. Council’s code of conduct precludes a councillor from making public any information from such meetings unless it has the approval of the ‘councillor group’. Since 3 councillors were not in the chamber, and others were definitely not asked for their agreement, we wonder whether Okotel in fact breached the code of conduct?!!!!!!!
What all of this shows is the circus that parades as good governance in Glen Eira.
Glen Eira Debates 
March 25, 2014 at 9:47 PM
Claims of Conflict of Interest are overused. Still, Andrew Newton did provide advice to councillors that their primary responsibility as Trustees is to the Trust, with the unstated inference that there can be a conflict of duties. Unless Andrew is a Trustee himself he probably doesn’t have a conflict (keeping in mind conflict of interest is somewhat “defined” in LGA).
The Councillors’ Code of Conduct doesn’t actually preclude information from a pre-meeting (assembly of councillors) being shared: it would have to be Confidential Information and meet the narrow criteria that defines Confidential Information. A separate clause of the Code says that the views expressed by councillors in an Assembly of Councillors must not be reported outside those meetings, but that doesn’t appear to apply here.
What is a concern is that what one councillor says to another councillor in secret suddenly becomes the basis for how they vote in a Council Meeting. This is far from transparent, and in the case of when a lease document might be signed, speculative. If you are relying on private “information” and make claims based on that information in a Meeting, you should be prepared to substantiate the claims if asked.