An elected member of the Naracoorte Lucindale Council has criticised the council for disregarding public input gathered during consultation processes.
Speaking exclusively to The [Naracoorte] News, Cr Craig McGuire claimed trust towards the elected body was “at an all-time low” with public consultation and feedback mostly ignored or dismissed if it did not fit the narrative of what parts of the elected council wanted to see.
Stating it as his opinion, Cr McGuire said elected members seemed to rely on their own circle of people, rather than what had been provided formally back to the council.
“I don’t have too many concerns with our public consultation policy or process. I can’t stress this enough. My actual concern is that the elected council doesn’t appear to want to listen to what the public tells us through our consultation processes,” he said.
In simple terms, Cr McGuire said that the community felt that the council ignored their feedback if it did not align with the council’s preferences.
“We can’t represent a few. We must respect the feedback from everybody,” he said.
This newspaper [Naracoorte News] asked Cr McGuire to provide examples of where he felt the elected council had failed to listen to public feedback.
“Let me give you four examples of recent consultations that the council has engaged in,” he said.
“For 99 Smith Street (old ANZ building), the council consulted on the possible purchase of this site to use for car parking in 2023.
“We (council) received 196 responses with 67 percent voting no to buying it. In the same survey, 51 percent of respondents said they do not believe there is a shortage of parking in Naracoorte.
“Yet, when it came back to the council for decision, half of the elected body voted to purchase the building for car parks anyway with a potential $1.2 million cost to the ratepayers.
“The comment in the chamber was that we don’t always have to listen but sometimes do what we think is best for the community.
“Why go to consultation then?” he asked.
Cr McGuire said the second was the Naracoorte Sports Centre, which went back to public consultation with two final designs—one was for $40 million, and one was for $8 million.
“As an elected body, we all verbally agreed, except one (elected) member, before we went out to consultation that the $40 million design could never be an option due to the cost to ratepayers,” he said.
“Yet, we insisted on putting that option out to public consultation, leading the public to believe they had a choice.
“Why not just be upfront and say that we investigated it, but we cannot afford it. People are aware this happened. I think we basically misled them.”
The third example he said was the North Parklands.
“We (the former 2018-2022 council) consulted in mid-2022 on what the community would like to see the North Parklands used for (or not used for),” Cr McGuire stated.
“Sixty four per cent of survey responses said that they would not support residential development in the North Parklands, and a lot of them wanted development to fit the current landscape, e.g., walking tracks, etc.
“There is a group of elected members that doesn’t fully accept the feedback provided from that consultation and appears supportive of residential development in the North Parklands on the basis that the consultation was flawed.
“It wasn’t. We have had a workshop on this already, but it was in confidence. The community knows it is back on the table, and a lot are not happy. Again, we didn’t listen.”
Cr McGuire highlighted the council’s community consultation on the Lucindale masterplan as his fourth example.
“(The former 2018- 2022) council has undertaken significant engagement with the Lucindale community on the original masterplan in 2018 and 2019, a later community walk-around for Musgrave Ave upgrades, and then a total independent review including community engagement for the Lucindale masterplan in 2023-2024, with a reviewed Lucindale masterplan endorsed in April 2024.
“Then at our last SAP meeting, some elected members felt the need to form their own working group to further advise on what updated design work should be undertaken as the presented draft designs weren’t to their liking and some in the community.
“This largely ignored the direction from the Lucindale community through engagement in the initial master plan development and ignored what can actually occur through rules of Australian standards on state roads.
“They approve the suggestions and designs, not the elected members.”
Cr McGuire said with the examples provided, he thought the elected members were not listening to the community.
“We are doing what we want. A lot of people I speak to see our consultation as a formality we have to go through rather than actually wanting to hear their ideas, let alone follow through with them.
“Why have a say?
“You are only going to do what you want anyway” is a common response I hear, and I can’t argue with that.
“Wait until the North Parklands is openly discussed again, and that sentiment will increase again,” he claimed.
The elected member had also expressed his views regarding the consultation process during various council, and committee meetings.
This newspaper asked Cr McGuire his views on improving the process.
“I think we can always improve how we engage with our community, but largely I think we do a fair and reasonable job of asking our community for their opinion on various things.
“I just don’t think we listen and accept their opinions.
“We need to allow workshops to be livestreamed and open to the media.
“The conversation in these workshops is information lost to the public forever and is a large part of why sometimes people can’t see the reasons for our decisions.
“Bring the community along for the ride and get discussions happening in our district, and more people will engage in future public consultations.”
He said the council needed to respect the information and opinions received through all public consultation and base its decisions on them to show the community that the process was worth doing because “we will listen”.
Responding to claims made by Cr McGuire that trust towards the elected body was “at an all-time low”, mayor Patrick Ross defended the council, saying that was not the feeling he was getting.
“I respect Cr McGuire’s personal opinion,” Mr Ross said.
“That is not the feeling that I get, and bearing in mind, elected members, some of them range across the district council and speak with many people.
“Perhaps the cohort which Mr McGuire speaks to, that is their opinion, and I respect that.”
The mayor said the council had 10 marvellous elected members who were very diverse.
“They (elected members) do represent our community from literally the meat worker, the gardener, to entrepreneurs – it’s a marvellous mix and they all come to the table with different opinions and ways that they think through the various issues, and their own idea of what the Naracoorte Lucindale Council can look like in five, 10, and 30-years’ time,” Mr Ross said.
In regard to the North Parklands, he said that was before his time.
“That was in the runup prior to my election.
“The sports centre has been going on since 2018, and had pretty much gone off the book, and the new council brought it on, and went out to public consultation.
“It’s about a question of funding and as aspirational as any community might be to have a magnificent facility, it was still, if the council had made a decision to go ahead with it, it was an enormous amount of work to be done over several election cycles before it would have got over the line.
“It must also be understood that in 2020 or 2021, a proposal for a sports centre had been put forward, and then federal Liberal government had agreed to take part in funding the sports facility, and then at that time the council added a swimming pool, and that actually caused the funding proposal the federal government was ready to go with change dramatically.”
“So, as aspirational the community might be, these things need to be paid for, and it came down to a question of everybody’s rate going up by 5 or 10 per cent.”
This article appeared in the Naracoorte News.