With COVID still lurking about in the background, it’s going to be hard for local council candidates to “meet the press” and for the community to hit each of the candidates up on where they stand on the topics of importance to them.
Local government elections are on 4th Dec 2021 in case you missed it.
Democracy is a “use it or lose it” deal. If you don’t know who the candidates are, why they’re applying for the job and what they intend to do if you give them the job, then you haven’t made an informed choice.
Eden Monaro Voice is all about giving voice to the community by providing a platform for community blogging. Which is why we are taking the time to talk to those campaigning to represent their local community.
If you are a candidate then we would appreciated your participation in the process.
If you have a question or topic you would like candidates to address then please let us know too.
How Do We Make it Work?
This is a “Take 2” because we started to organise interviews with candidates before, only to have COVID pull the rug when the September election was delayed to December.
What we learnt from that process though, was just how much work it was going to take to put together a fair and equitable approach to interviews.
What has also happened since then is the high court ruling that “administrators are publishers” which has forced many website operators and media organisations to reconsider allowing public comment and content submission.
It suggests that websites can be held accountable for defamation for “publishing” the words of others. Now of course you would think the words of politicians would be protected by “freedom of political communication” and all that, but talk to a lawyer;
Sorry for the diversion, but I felt it was important to explain why we changed direction please, and it is relevant because…
Process for Conduct of Interviews
Rather than host and post candidate interviews as we originally intended, now instead we will provide information to the public about where they can find candidates responses to the standardised questions.
Candidates will need to record and “host” their interview answers on the medium of their choice. For example social media solutions like Facebook, Youtube or perhaps even Zoom etc, etc.
Please keep in mind that any platform that requires you to login to access content will create a barrier to entry.
Please also keep in mind that your choice of platform is indicative of support for that provider’s manner of operation. (Yep – looking at you FB!)
If you are confronted as a candidate by the idea of putting your face up online then think about how you’re going to feel when you’re published to the community as part of the regular operations of the council over Zoom.
Need Assistance?
If you lack the necessary technical skills to make this happen as an independent candidate, then please reach out to me and I will see what we can do to assist you with training and tech support.
Questions and Topics?
We are consolidating questions from the community as we go.
Below are the standard catch all questions to start with that we would expect everyone wants to know:
1. Tell Us About You
“Please, tell us a little about yourself and why you are running for council”
2. Communication?
“How are you going to engage with the community on an ongoing basis? Do you have a website or social media address we can access?”
3. Why You?
“What do you think qualifies you to be on the board of an organisation with an annual budget in the 10s of millions that directly impacts the lives of 10s of thousands of people?”
4. Past Participation?
“How many of the council meetings have you attended and how many of the council meeting briefs have you read over the last 12 months? (Assuming you’re not an incumbent)”
For Current Councillors Instead:
“What have you achieved as a councillor?”
5. Change?
“What do you want to change most about how the current council operates? What will be your top priority on being elected?”
6. Vision?
“What’s your vision for the region?”
7. Topics and Issues
Which will then be followed by a range of:
- Where do you stand on topic X or problem Y.
You might want to address topics like (in no particular order):
- roads,
- water,
- housing affordability and availability,
- rubbish/waste treatment,
- sewage,
- rural land use,
- climate change,
- disability and inclusion,
- demerger,
- rates and user charges,
- budget deficit,
- proposed Canberra to Eden rail link,
- proposed Monaro Rail Trail (MRT),
- bushfire recovery and mitigation,
- emergency management,
- COVID,
- aged care,
- SAP,
- local sports,
- local arts and culture,
- conflict of interest,
- and others..
The idea is that you can respond to the individual issues and topics over the next few weeks via your communications platform of choice, rather than try to get the whole interview complete in one go.
I (Harry Longworth) am working with a range of others to try to organise all this stuff. For the moment I’m making use of my own website smrc.info to take questions and answers for much of the reasons discussed above.
If you would like to assist in the interviewing of candidates then please reach out to me. My focus is on the SMRC LGA, but EMV is a larger area than just that. Assistance with coordination would be greatly appreciated.
Talk soon!