I don’t normally respond to the political ramblings of my political opponents but the comments of Greens NSW Local Government spokesperson David Shoebridge about the state of democracy in our City demands an answer. In reality, he bags Council and our residents.
Complaints that democracy is absent in our City from a person who gained a seat on Wollahra Council with a 6.05% of the total vote of the people of Wollahra and who came unelected into the NSW Legislative Council (he got the nod as a Greens MP to replace another Green who departed for greener pastures) is, to use as old saying, the devil quoting scripture.
I suppose I can be blamed for many things but I think it’s stretching credulity to be blamed for the last Council Election when no one stood against any of the incumbent councilors, or, indeed, myself. We welcome people offering themselves for election to Council – that’s everyone’s democratic right and that’s the democratic process. It’s also the democratic reflection of the people that their representatives get a majority of votes.
There is no inherent right to a seat on Council for the Greens if they get just 10% of the vote, a figure Mr Shoebridge himself couldn’t achieve.
A left wing, socialist sitting in the rarified environs of Vaucluse, dispensing wisdom to us like some wise sage, should at least try and get some votes among his fellow members of the Legislative Council, who, by the way, didn’t bother to have a formal vote to reject his self-serving, inherently superior view of how local councils should be elected.
He is one of those people who knows his views are correct (and should be unquestioned by the rest of us) and that his views are best for everyone and everyone should agree unreservedly with his way of thinking and let him and his ilk run the place how they think fit.
Now that’s not democracy, the philosophy he espouses, which is say one thing – do another.
Complaints that democracy is absent in our City from a person who gained a seat on Wollahra Council with a 6.05% of the total vote of the people of Wollahra and who came unelected into the NSW Legislative Council (he got the nod as a Greens MP to replace another Green who departed for greener pastures) is, to use as old saying, the devil quoting scripture.
I suppose I can be blamed for many things but I think it’s stretching credulity to be blamed for the last Council Election when no one stood against any of the incumbent councilors, or, indeed, myself. We welcome people offering themselves for election to Council – that’s everyone’s democratic right and that’s the democratic process. It’s also the democratic reflection of the people that their representatives get a majority of votes.
There is no inherent right to a seat on Council for the Greens if they get just 10% of the vote, a figure Mr Shoebridge himself couldn’t achieve.
A left wing, socialist sitting in the rarified environs of Vaucluse, dispensing wisdom to us like some wise sage, should at least try and get some votes among his fellow members of the Legislative Council, who, by the way, didn’t bother to have a formal vote to reject his self-serving, inherently superior view of how local councils should be elected.
He is one of those people who knows his views are correct (and should be unquestioned by the rest of us) and that his views are best for everyone and everyone should agree unreservedly with his way of thinking and let him and his ilk run the place how they think fit.
Now that’s not democracy, the philosophy he espouses, which is say one thing – do another.
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