On Saturday, July 14, I attended the Residential Action Group (RAN) Council Election Candidates Information Afternoon. The first item on the agenda was a report from Leisa Davies, Chairperson of Port Macquarie Hastings Council Governance Review Consultation Panel. In her report, Ms Davies said that honesty and integrity was the stand-out specification in importance to the local electors.
Each candidate attending the meeting was given the opportunity of speaking for 90 seconds to outline their policies. At the end of their address they were questioned about their political alignment. Transparency in political alignment was also high on the list. Of the eleven candidates who addressed the meeting, the Country Labor candidate and the four Greens candidates were open and transparent about their political alignments. The other six candidates claimed they were not aligned to any political party. One has to question the honesty and truthfulness of the other six candidates. In particular, one candidate who stated he is not aligned to any polical party, but in the previous weeks he sought National Party preselection for the Federal seat of Lyne. One would assume that one must be a paid up member of the Party to stand for preselection.
So much for honesty and integrity if they can’t be truthful in admitting political affiliations.
Country Labor in local government stands for:
nPromoting transparency, ethics and community empowerment
nSecuring local jobs and services
nPromoting equality and social justice in our communities
nImproving the local environment
The four Country Labor members will not deny their political party affiliations.
Jeff J Condron
Secretary, Port Macquarie Branch of Country Labor
