Last night’s council meeting included a Glen Eira first – a Notice of Motion presented by Cr Zyngier. This was permitted since council’s governance rules were once again shown to include a monumental stuff up and hence the denial of a real Notice of Motion was not possible. Admittedly we had not picked this up previously but can now conclude that the following was the reason why the governance rules (as intended) would not hold up to legal scrutiny. The crucial section is contained in this dialogue box taken directly from the governance rules –

We then get this caveat which basically undermines and rules useless the attempted Clayton’s Notice of Motion.

Thus we get a first in Glen Eira – a genuine Notice of Motion!

Please listen very carefully to the following audio of this motion. It failed once again on the casting vote of Magee after Penniciuk declared a conflict of interest and left the chamber.

What however is quite staggering in this item, needs to be highlighted and seriously questioned!

  • Why are councillors denied access to essential consultant/officer reports that would substantiate the ensuing recommendations and claims made?
  • How does this equate with informed decision making, when councillors are not privy to the evidence?
  • Why are potential inaccuracies in officer/consultant reports not open to scrutiny or review?
  • How many more times are councillors forced to vote on something of major significance without the benefit of the full data?

Transparency, and accountability, plus informed decision making by this council is clearly non-existent!