Hubris gone mad?
Although counting of about 10,000 postal and pre-poll votes begins today, the line-up is unlikely to change. The people have spoken. A couple of the councillors who look like being returned had achieved little for their community in the past and are now set to enjoy an even more lucrative ride. Hopefully the majority of those elected are hard working and will ensure ratepayer's best interests are fairly represented.
The results to date may look fairly even-handed with four former Hervey Bay councillors, four former Maryborough councillors, and one former councillor from Woocoo and Tiaro respectively. However, this outcome, should it remain unchanged when the poll is declared, would leave Hervey Bay residents under represented, on a per capita basis, and rural/regional voters over represented.
It appears that Hervey Bay residents went to the polls and fairly distributed their votes to include representatives from Maryborough, Tiaro and Woocoo. Unfortunately that fairness was not repeated by voters in the rest of the region who feared a Hervey Bay takeover of their area. We can only hope that the majority councillors, aware of this imbalance, do not band together as a parochial block, and use their numbers to vote against improvements/benefits for Hervey Bay ratepayers. The mayor's casting vote, if such a scenario ever eventuated, would make no difference.
There was good news however from the Chronicle editor who has now graciously given councillors permission to use the Internet, but only as long as "they know the difference" between fair and unfair debate. How fair was that?
2 comments:
Just wanted to let you know that my husband and I live in Maryborough and we voted for councillors from all four places not just Maryborough.
I love how we in Maryborough are constantly attacked for being parochial but Hervey Bay people are just as guilty of being that way as well.
In response to the comment above, I would like to say that obviously not all Maryborough people voted unfairly. However my analysis was based on the results from the major booths in Maryborough and Hervey Bay and there was a marked difference in voting patterns.
The stark result was that in the top four Maryborough booths, only Belinda McNeven got a guernsey, she came in at number 10. No other Hervey Bay councillor won a spot yet at Hervey Bay's top four booths four of the top ten places went to Maryborough, Tiaro or Woocoo candidates. The unfortunate consequence of this parochialism was the loss of Trevor McDonald, one of the Bay's and the region's most capable councillors. At Tuesday night's polling he trailed Anne Nioa and Gerard O'Connell by only a handful of votes, and in early counting on Wednesday he moved into ninth place after counting at a couple of Hervey Bay booths. But then came Bell Hilltop, Granville and North Street, where the local candidates outpolled him my margins approaching three to one. Suddenly he was thousands behind.
The consequence of all this is that the most populous city in the region with the highest levels of growth are in the minority on the council.
BecT, Editor
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