Candidate Forum No. 4 Tanilba Bay, Last Forum!

The final ‘Meet The Candidates’ Forum was held at the Tilligerry Sports and RSL club at Tanilba Bay last night (August 29).  There were around 35 people in attendance and they responded with plenty of their own questions for the three Candidates that turned up, as they have for the previous Central Ward Forums.

Mayoral Candidate Geoff Dingle, Greens Candidate Catlin Spiller, and Independent Shaun McGechem attended.

*** As one of the designers of the Forums I would like to make the following comments:

We still don’t know what frightened the other Candidates off. The stock questions that TRRA asked at all the forums, about the performance of the last Council were;

1. Financial Performance of PSC, $5 mill. Underlying Deficit, etc.

2. Planning Decisions Taken against Council Staff, & State Govt. Recommendations.

3. PSC Response to 36 Recommendations from DLG Review of Council. (Department of Local Govt.)

4. Excessive Litigation Costs generated by PSC.

5. Closed Meetings and Transparency of Decisions taken.

  • All Questions were Sourced from Council Documents, DLG Review of PSC, PSC Customer Satisfaction Survey,  PSC Annual Accounts,  PSC End Of Term Review.
  • We see these Questions as being quite appropriate for Ratepayers to have the answers to when they evaluate Candidates to represent them
  • Obviously these ‘No Show’ Candidates, particularly the previous Councillors,  do not see themselves as having any obligation to be held accountable to the community that they say they seek to represent.
  • They showed absolutely no respect for their 355 constituents that attended the forums to hear them speak on a cold winter’s night.
  • To accuse the TRRA of bias in the Examiner when we went to so much trouble to make sure each speaker got the same questions, the same ability to comment, and digitally timed the answers just shows how arrogant they really can be. A perfect example of the ‘Born to Rule’ syndrome. (All forums were Video Recorded for accuracy, we DO know what actually happened!)
  • We can only hope that TRRA has achieved some of its objective of seeking to expose ALL Candidates to some public scrutiny and that the voters will make an informed choice.
  • We can only note that Geoff Dingle fronted up to all 4 Forums as a two term Councillor.  He answered all the above questions in a direct and forthright manner and his explanations were well received by the public.
  • Sally Dover and Bob Westbury behaved in a very defensive manner, revealed their allegiances to Bruce Mackenzie and  the audience reacted accordingly. They then tried to ‘shoot the messenger’ by attacking the integrity of the TRRA and used that and the ‘incident’ outside the hall at Anna Bay as an excuse to avoid attending any more of the Forums, despite Sally Dover’s email committing herself to all four..
  • If the questions were as negative and biased as they say, how come Dingle is not missing a lot of skin as well, and why did he keep coming?
  • The ‘new’ candidates who turned up, took full advantage of the opportunity provided by the Forums to get some exposure, got a free kick, and were also well received by the public. We thank them for ‘Having a go,’ think most of them have a lot of potential and wish them the best of luck.
  • Macka, we do think you were hiding all your ‘Team to Achieve’ from TRRA, you were obviously hiding from the ABC discussion with Aaron Kearney on Monday morning as well. This ‘keep a low profile’ stuff seems very unusual for you, why are you so keen to avoid any questions before the election?
  • Here’s another question that we would like to have asked you, Geoff Dingle said that he was prepared to work with anyone, including you in a new Council, If as you have stated, you can’t stand being in the same room with him, how is that going to work? Back to the bad old days? I don’t think we want to go there. Please make this clear before the election.
  • Voters, please take care who you give your preferences to and how you assign them if you decide to do it yourself. Make sure you know who is going to end up with your vote. The future of this great place we live in, that we all love, is in your hands, don’t blow it!

 TRRA is apolitical and does not support any individual candidate in this election. We do however reserve the right to hold Past, Present and Future Candidates to account for what they do with our resources.

Some of the views expressed in this post are my personal opinions as a designer of the Forums and have not been endorsed by the TRRA as an organisation.

More when I get time, Dick

 

 

 

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