Last minute mess at Leichhardt Council

Last minute mess at Leichhardt Council

With equal representation in all three parties, the Greens, the Liberal and the Labor parties scurried to broker deals only minutes prior to the September 25 Mayoral election.

The Liberal party proposed a three-way deal splitting the Mayoral responsibility, while the Labor Party and Greens made an unsuccessful attempt at placing tensions aside for the sake of the Mayoralty.

Many assumed, including the Greens, the Labor party would choose to form an alliance with the Liberal party having done the same thing in 2004. But Mayor Darcy Byrne contested he only ever tried to form an agreement with the Greens.

Behind the scenes the Labor party proposed a four-year deal with the Greens whereby the party holding the Mayoralty for the first year would be determined by lot. The Greens asserted a two-year good governance agreement that saw Councillor Rochelle Pourteous being elected as Mayor for the first year for the sake of continuity, and due to the Greens receiving the highest primary vote of 35 per cent.

The Labor Party “caved in” at the last minute and agreed to the Greens’ two-year agreement. However, they asserted that like the Labor Party, all four Greens sign the agreement. Ms Porteous insisted on signing on behalf of her Party.

Mr Byrne explained the odd disagreement was down to disunity in the Greens voting the same way.

“The Greens don’t have a binding corpus that is there is not a rule in their party that requires everyone to vote the same way,” he said.

This led Mr Byrne to nominate himself at the last minute for the position of Mayor.

Ms Porteous said: “The Greens had discussions with Labor in good faith to reach a two-year agreement with them regarding the Mayoralt,y which would have delivered strong and stable governance, continuity and effective leadership with a Green Mayor and a Labor Mayor in the first two years of Council.

“This did not happen nevertheless the Greens congratulate the new Mayor and Deputy Mayor.”

Following the elections, Mr Byrne leaked the email exchange discussing the deals between Ms Pourteous and himself to the press. Mr Byrne argued the communication needed to be publicised in order to protect Labor’s reputation, after the Greens insisted that the Labor Party were making deals with the Liberal party behind the scenes.

“Rochelle and Jamie Parker were out there on Twitter and lying pretending there had been some agreement between us and the Liberals,” Mr Byrne said. “What choice did I have under those circumstances where the Green’s party dishonestly, unethically and cynically sought to have us sign an agreement that their caucus had not actually agreed to and then go out and publically lie about the circumstances of it?”

No such accusatory claims exist on either of Ms Porteous or Green’s MP Jamie Parker’s Twitter accounts; in fact Ms Porteous’s account has not been accessed since March.

Greens Councillor Michele McKenzie and Green’s Marrickville Councillor Max Phillips, vented their frustrations on Twitter, hinting hint at party tensions and distrust with Mr Byrne.

Liberal Councillor John Jobling denies accusations that the Labor Party approached the Liberal party for any deals. Mr Jobling said that the Liberal Party approached the other two parties for a three-party deal based on the close primary vote.

“I proposed that we share the Mayoralty one year each for the first three years and the fourth year by any means possible to reflect the vote of the residents in the municipality,” he said “The Labor party appeared interested but the Greens rejected it.”

You May Also Like

Comments are closed.