Accountability in Geelong

It seems that former  Geelong mayor Bruce Yarwood may be up for a bit of accountability himself.  He was recently featured on accountability in this blog.  Now it seems there’s a push to make the position of Mayor of Geelong popularly elected.  Just what Bruce needs.

The Geelong Advertiser reported that The Committee for Geelong has called for the creation of a special taskforce to push its agenda of a popularly elected mayor.  Committee officials met with Premier John Brumby last week where they again mooted the idea.  The committee has been calling for a directly elected Geelong mayor to be legislated for about six years.

Committee executive director Peter Dorling said it was time to open the debate fully to the public after a Geelong Advertiser Your City, Your Say survey showed 74 per cent, or three in four residents, wanted to vote on the city's top leader.

The City of Melbourne is the only Victorian council to have a popularly elected mayor.  Mr Dorling said the committee had asked that a broad-based taskforce be set up as part of regional development policy.  The City of Greater Geelong council, however, continues to elect its mayors on an annual basis.

Former mayor and current deputy mayor Bruce Harwood said that if he had to choose he would stick with the current system because it allowed for a strong diversity of candidates.  This comes despite saying publicly when elected in 2006 that he would lobby for such a change.  He said the publicly elected system would narrow the field to those who could run a large campaign those who were politically connected, already a high-profile community person or had their own finances to back their campaign.

Cr Harwood said, however, that continuity of leadership was good for delivering a vision and suggested an alternative would be to have a separate ballot sheet on election day that residents could chose who they wanted from a pool of candidates who sought the position. He said that result could then be used as a guide for councillors when deliberating their choice.