Council elections are happening this month.
In a lot of areas there’s been a change.
Here in Glen Eira we used to have 3 wards with 3 councillors each. Now we’ll have 9 wards with 1 councillor each.
I’m not so sure this is a good idea. Unfortunately some elected councillors aren’t great. In the past if you had an issue and needed to contact one, there’d be at least a couple of options.
On the other hand, smaller wards may mean a better focus on local issues.
Who to vote for?
So how do you find out who to vote for?
The postal election packs arriving in the next week or so will include candidate names, contact details and responses to a basic questionnaire.
But before your pack arrives, you can look at these on the VEC web site now – you’ll just need to find your council area and ward. They have an address search tool that makes it easy.
The questionnaire responses may give you some indication of who to vote for.
Some candidates haven’t bothered to fill in the questionnaire. If you ask me, these should be bottom of your list – if they don’t care enough about it to do this, how could they possibly be a good councillor?
In some cases candidates are sending around flyers, advertising on social media or elsewhere. And of course you could ask around about what they’re like, or contact them yourself and ask questions.
In my ward, I’ve been told by a good source that one candidate was less than impressive when encountered elsewhere, so I’m likely to favour the others.
Councils and transport
Since you’re reading my blog, you may be interested in public and active transport – the Streets People Love campaign is supported by a number of community groups, and has surveyed candidates and published ratings for those who responded.
Some other local groups have also surveyed candidates. These caught my eye:
In City of Melbourne, which is getting the most media attention, candidates seem obsessed with bike lanes – many adopting 1950s thinking that more cars in the CBD is a good thing, and/or believing the myth that if given enough space, congestion will disappear – rather than taking on policies that would actually get more people into the CBD, such as lobbying for better public transport.
Councils don’t run public transport or manage main roads, but they can certainly influence both, and do control local streets. They can make a big difference in whether our streets work just for motorists, or for everybody.
So, be informed, and happy voting!
UPDATE: Additional local survey link added above
3 replies on “Council elections 2024”
With the upcoming council elections, a word of warning about this group called “My Place”, which is a group of people that promotes conspiracy theories. I am not sure how their posters are designed, but since we don’t know who many of the candidates are affiliated with, we need to be careful we don’t vote for “My Place”. If anyone knows what the posters look like, can you describe it so I know who they are, and NOT vote for them.
And your statement, I totally agree. I will not be voting for the candidates who won’t release a statement, and I urge everyone else to do the same, especially those who claim to promote transparency, but won’t say what they stand for.
I have seven candidates in my ward and they all have similar statements. I’ve emailed each of them about issues of concern to me – asking for their stance / plans.
Issue 1: 4/7 replied
Issue 2: so far 2/7 replied
It’s a low bar but I’m not even looking at what they are saying at this point, just whether they can respond to an email at election time!
One candidate stated in The Age survey that she was “affiliated with Labor”. However, in the VEC questionnaire her answer to the “Are you endorsed by a registered political party? she answered No.
Apparently, you can be affiliated with a party but not endorsed by them.