Attendance made public

Attendance made public

A report compiling the attendance records of Mount Gambier City councillors at formal and informal meetings has been released. It follows Councillor Max Bruins alleging several councillors were “consistently absent” from meetings, with a report compiling attendances revealed at council’s July elected members meeting.

The report, which consolidated information already publicly available in the minutes of each meeting, was moved by Cr Bruins and seconded by Cr Christian Greco. “I’m happy to move and allow the report to speak for itself, Your Worship,” Cr Bruins said when called to move the report by Mayor Lynette Martin.

“I’m happy to second and congratulate a lot of members for our regular council meeting attendance,” Cr Greco said. “I think the most anyone missed was one meeting, so I think there’s been very good attendance at our council meetings, which is good to see.” “For council meetings, yes, that’s right,” Mayor Martin added.

But in addition to providing a compiled list of councillors’ attendances at regular meetings, committee meetings and workshops was a breakdown of the required duties of councillors under the Local Government Act, the legislation that determines what is legally expected of elected members.

This addition to the report came as an amendment to Cr Bruins’ original motion by Cr Kate Amoroso, seconded by Cr Steven Perryman, and showed that neither the Local Government Act or Regulations specify any particular requirements relating to elected member attendance at meetings. However, council’s governance and property manager Michael McCarthy reminded councillors they took an oath at the first meeting of the council term before assuming office.

“Having been elected or appointed to the office of a member of the City of Mount Gambier, (elected members) undertake to faithfully and impartially fulfil the duties of office in the public interest, to the best of my judgement and abilities and in accordance with the Local Government Act 1999,” the oath states.

Both Cr Amoroso and Cr Perryman’s attendances showed the highest absences of any councillors, with several absences for both councillors without a recorded apology. Mr McCarthy added that, as an “absolute minimum”, councillors should avoid invoking a section of the Act that provides that a councillor can be removed from office if they miss three or more consecutive ordinary council meetings.

No councillors were observed to have breached this section of the Act for the reports recorded period of between January 1, 2021 to 30 June. Mr McCarthy noted that community expectations may differ from the above.

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