DESPITE having some reservations about the name, Mornington Peninsula Shire councillors have agreed to investigate having a “watchdog” citizens panel to look over their shoulders when considering annual council budgets.
It is too late for the panel to be established for the coming year’s budget and, if followed through, the watchdog panel would work with a new council after the October elections.
Chief financial officer Bulent Oz said an alternative could be to name a meeting of the existing citizens panel “a Budget Watchdog session”. Discussing budget performance and financial goals with the Citizens Panel “will provide valuable insights”, he said. “It will help demystify the financial aspects of council operations and allow for a more informed conversation about financial priorities and outcomes.”
Cr David Gill said the term watchdog was “common terminology” that people would understand described a panel that saw “what gets to come in, and out, of our budget”. The watchdog could help prevent the lack of information about what was in the budget before it was adopted by council. “Mainly, this is about transparency. I’ve tried to get transparency with our briefings and minutes of advisory groups made public,” Gill said. “Public transparency, policy transparency are cornerstones of democratic governments and that’s what this [watchdog panel] will enable – a widening of community input. “You can never have enough transparency.”
Cr Susan Bissinger said while the “language” could be inflammatory for some, there were many people in the community who could contribute “valuable input” to such a panel. The budget’s use of ratepayers’ money was “the biggest decision made by any council … and for the council to not be completely over it, or for the community to be even less over it, I think there needs to be some opening up to show what’s being done”.
Helping people understand was “a really super important part of our big push, now we’ve got councillors on board with the transparency, we’ve really got to keep pushing that barrow and making sure that we’re not trying to hide things … that can be seen as being non-transparent as well”. “It will be interesting to see where this lands with the next group of councillors … and was there any real appetite for true transparency within this councillor group,” Bissinger said.
Cr Antonella Celi questioned the use of “watchdog” and was satisfied with the existing budget process. “… We’re elected from the community, we work through the budget process, we have extensive community consultation,” she said.
Cr Sarah Race said, “an unelected body called the community watchdog panel doing the work of councillors” was “an interesting take on what transparency looks like because”. “If we need to know more details, it’s up to us to ask those questions. If we want more information, ask those questions,” she said. “I’m more than happy having our budget briefings more transparent … but to have a community watchdog panel who are unelected come and tell us as councillors when we should be doing our work. That is our role as councillors. “We’re here to do this work and we are the community watchdog.”
Cr Kate Roper said the Watchdog Panel sounded like a great idea but was “worried about what it actually entails: does the panel make recommendations or are they just clarifying what the budget does for our community?” “I’m all for transparency … the more information our community has the happier I am and I’m happy to support [a report on forming a Watchdog Panel}.”
Cr Debra Mar was also “for transparency” but wondered if members of the public hearing the word watchdog would think that it “indicates has there been something untoward previously?” “If I was a community member, I’d be sitting there wondering what has been hidden in the past to bring forward a budget community panel at this late stage,” she said. “Now it’s up to the changing of the guard at the end of this year. I think it will be up to the next group of councillors on how they move this forward.”
Cr Anthony said calling for a report was not committing to any specific action and using “watchdog” may not be the best description. “Telling citizens that because they are not elected their views do not matter will be received very poorly,” he said. “That comment was fairly hypocritical given that the many of our advice groups are not elected.”
The decision to call for a report on forming citizens watchdog panel was passed on the votes of Crs Gill, Marsh, Bissinger, Roper, Simon Brooks and Lisa Dixon. Opposed to the panel were Crs Race, Mar and Celi.
First published in the Mornington News – 30th April 2024
