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22/09/2005

Conduct of Monash Council

The recent conduct of Monash Council is increasingly leading to the perception within the community that the Monash Council is corrupt in some aspects of its conduct.

When the Council recently voted for legal expenses for Mayor Dimopoulos, and Crs Banerji and Lake, they did not collectively vacate the chamber as required where each has a pecuniary interest. Whilst this issue was discussed by Council under Confidential Business, those from the gallery who were outside could clearly see through the glass windows of the chamber what was going on. When Dimopoulos vacated the chair, Banerji took the chair. When Banerji vacated the chamber, Dimopoulos and Lake were present. We believe this “round robin” approach to declaring a pecuniary interest ( in an issue common to all three Councillors) is not in compliance with the relevant clause of the Local Government Act. We further believe that the one issue was being discussed during the whole course of what was witnessed by several people outside the chamber. This is the only conclusion that we can arrive at since the requirement for the Council to go into Confidential Business was moved by Cr Banerji and seconded by Cr McCall. The motion was “That the Council move into Confidential Business to consider a matter that the Council considers may prejudice the Council” (Refer Council minutes of 9 August.)

Section 89 of the Local Government Act covers the requirements of meetings and Para 3 requires the reasons for closing a meeting to be included in the minutes. The above motion is too general and does not, in our view, adequately comply with this section of the Act. It is further understood that resolution outcomes of confidential business have to come back into open business and be declared. This was not done on this occasion and appears to be a frequent lapse on the part of Monash Council.

Once again we see a secretive Monash Council that goes out of its way to deny transparency to Local Government and applies a very loose interpretation of the Act.

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