A month away- but nothing has changed

I've spent a month in the charming company of friends, camping along the east coast of Australia- an amazing adventure with many stories to tell.

So I'm back in the Shoalhaven feeling refreshed and relaxed and ready to be a little bit more friendly towards my Council colleagues.

Or so I thought.

That glowing feeling lasted about 20 mins into yesterdays policy resources and reserves committee, when It dawned on me that this Council has reached new heights of brainlessness and the grand puppet master Greg Watson is back yanking the conservatives strings ( not that he really went any where).

This was followed up be reading some distressing emails from the LEP review group.

During last nights meeting I put forward a motion that nominated Gash, Wells, Guile and myself as voting delegates for the upcoming Local Government Conference. I thought that was a reasonable reflection of the mix on Council.

The Local Government conference is a place were the members (local councils) give advice to a state body ( the association) to lobby state and federal government on behalf of Councils. The associations position is voted on via motions at conference and its highly political.

So the puppet masters opening salvo was don't send Findley she will tow the Greens party line and not support Shoalhaven motions  which in the past have been very ordinary and often criticised by other non Green Councillor who I have met through the independents network.

Of course Wells jumped on this comment as he thought I had voted against a Shoalhaven motion at the last conference, I asked that the motion be referred to the executive to check for validity as there was an active court case on the issue at the time.

At the last Conference the Gashites didn't call a pre conference meeting to discuss the business paper or even their position on the Shoalhaven motions which had been formulated not by them but the outgoing conservative Gareth Ward. They had no understanding or backgrounding on the motions. So they either thought they knew what they were doing or left it to others to do a job for them.

I had two motions at conference that were successfully supported by conference ( they forget the good bits) and these motion were supported by an overwhelming majority not by a division.

Clr Robertson who I have found to be fair minded- didn't want to support my motion "not because of the people being put forward" but because he wasn't sure about who was going-I told the meeting on three occasions that I would be attending. He shattered his own argument about two mins later when he voted for delegates that didn't include me- so Clive it definitely was about the people then?

 So one of those who I though was fair minded and more inclined towards equity showed his true "blue" colours and the Puppet master Watson smugly walked away with a voting right.

The hypocrisy of the situation is astounding- the Local Government act enshrines that there should be no binding caucus amongst local government members DO YOU HEAR THAT GASHITES- NO BINDING CAUCUS. yet here was a meeting of Council that was trying to bind its members to a position for conference!!!! and then later in the meeting saying that a referendum vote was completely based on a conscience vote.

Blah these people make me sick with their blatant hypocrisy and in some instances what can only be described as downright forked tongue double speak. I've seen almost all of them now say one thing in a public forum and vote completely the opposite in Council.

So the Puppet master Watson pulls their strings, even though they wanted to end the Watson regime that was supposedly ruining the Shoalhaven just 11 months ago, surely Watson is rubbing his hands with glee as the dominant faction swallow his bait and vote accordingly.

If  the Gashites even listen to a small proportion of my debate they would actually understand that I'm not as hard left as Watson would have them believe- but hey they don't listen to the community so why would they listen to me.