Chris Oldfield, Naracoorte Community News

The axing of a one-hour public question and answer segment at a Meet the Candidates forum in the Town Hall is not aimed at gagging or silencing anyone, according to Naracoorte Lucindale Council CEO Trevor Smart. The forum is at 7pm, Wednesday, September 28, in the Town Hall.

Traditionally, a Meet the Candidates forum has been held before council elections, enabling all candidates seeking election to give a five-minute presentation, starting with those seeking to be mayor.

That is followed by each candidate for the 10 councillor positions giving a five-minute presentation. Then, traditionally, a one-hour segment followed, often chaired by a former mayor or a community chairman of equally high regard.

During this segment, members of the audience were able to ask the candidates a variety of questions, which would be answered during the Q and A session of the public forum.

However, regarding the forum, the council advised publicly on September 7 that: “Questions from the audience must be relevant to the powers of council such as functional, strategic or policy issues of the council.”

The statement was “authorised by (CEO) Trevor Smart”. But last week the council axed the one-hour public Q and A event.

Instead, the audience could “mingle” with candidates and ask questions privately instead of during a public forum.

This newspaper has since received a raft of complaints. They claimed candidates were being “gagged” or “silenced” by the council administration and those seeking election were not being allowed to “freely answer questions from voters in a public forum”.

Some members of the public further claimed the council leadership team was deliberately offering an unfair advantage to current elected members.

That was because less well known or new candidates were not able to answer questions publicly – or enable voters to see them respond openly regarding matters of community interest.

In response to those claims, Mr Smart said the main intention of the Meet the Candidates session was to provide an opportunity for all candidates to put forward their views to those people attending “for a maximum of five minutes”.

“Attendance at this session is not compulsory as part of the elections and is purely a choice of each candidate,” he said.

“I don’t believe that anyone is being gagged or silenced, as the session will now allow a period of 60 minutes for those members of the public attending, to mingle with, and ask questions of any candidate.

“The initial plan to hold a Q and A session would have been, in my opinion, more restrictive – as the Q and A session would have allowed each candidate to have up to two minutes each to answer a question posed.

“This would have quite likely limited questions to two – three total in a 60-minute period – which I did view as somewhat restrictive.

“The format of the evening is set by myself, and I take full responsibility for that.

“I don’t consider that there is any disadvantage or advantage to any candidate – existing elected member, or new candidate – as they will receive the same opportunity at the session.

“Current elected members should not use forums, such as a council or committee meetings, for electioneering purposes, but they are still required to undertake their roles and responsibilities as elected members.

“All candidates can undertake their own election campaigns, and this includes how they receive and answer questions from members of the public.”

Mr Smart said he provided “some guidelines as to the extent of questions”.  He said this was “along the lines of electoral commission guidelines for candidate profiles, so this is a practice set by (the) Electoral Commission SA (ECSA).

“Although the Q and A session has been amended, members of the public can still ask questions of any candidate during a 60-minute period following their individual presentations,” Mr Smart said. But it would be during private discussions, not in an open forum.

Mayor Erika Vickery explained the forum was organised by Mr Smart and “like every candidate” she had no input into the date, time or format.

“The forum is an opportunity for the community to hear from each of the candidates and I will be attending the forum,” Mrs Vickery said.

Mayoral candidate Patrick Ross has a campaign platform that includes openness and transparency and described the axed Q and A public forum as “very disappointing!”.

“A Question and Answer session in a public forum gives the best opportunity for nominees to speak and the electors to gauge any response to questions,” Mr Ross said.

A spokesperson for the Electoral Commission said councils could hold information sessions or debates “as long as they do it for all candidates and don’t use council resources to support one candidate over another”.

This article appeared in the Naracoorte Community News.