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Media Release:

Mayoral Elections: Greens Stick to Inclusive Sharing on Randwick

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The annual September Mayoral elections are coming up for many of NSW Councils including Randwick City.

The Green Councillors on Randwick are bound by a 2004 Randwick-Botany Greens resolution that includes the two key guidelines on how they are to vote in Mayoral elections.

  1. The Liberal Councillors will hold the Mayorship for any two of the four years of the administrative period from September 2004 to September 2008.

  2. The remaining two and half years will be allocated to either a Labor or a Green Mayor including the initial period up to September 2004.

Greens Deputy Mayor Murray Matson stated that the understanding in the local group was that the Greens would only support ALP Councillor Paul Tracy for Mayor in September 2006.

He clarified,

“The Greens will support Paul Tracy and no one else from the Labor party. If its not him, them we will stand a Green.”

Cr Matson drew attention to the disruptive tactics used by some ALP Councillors in meetings. He elaborated,

“The Greens have had a positive relationship with Cr Tracey since the 2004 elections and we remain committed to sharing the mayorship. Not withstanding this commitment, the Green Councillors want a Mayor that will genuinely attempt to maintain decorum in the chamber and will encourage debate over name slinging and abuse. We want some one in the chair who will be impartial when Cr Bastic tries to derail meetings with his customary gutter tactics.”

The Randwick-Botany Greens resolution of 2004 was an attempt by the local Greens to pioneer a unique sharing or "inclusive" arrangement for the Mayorship that would include all three political parties on the Council.

But negotiations for such a three way agreement fell apart when a majority of Councillors refused to sign it.

The Greens subsequently decided that it was pointless for the purposes of inclusiveness to ask the remaining minority of non-green councillors to sign to an agreement.

Instead the Greens resolved to adopt their sharing proposal as a template for how they would vote as single party.

The full text of the Randwick-Botany Greens agreement for how they desire to share the Mayoralty can be found at http://www.randwickbotanygreens.org.au/

CONTACT: Randwick City Greens Councillor Murray Matson