That might be seen as the starter’s gun for direct public involvement in this year’s process of choosing those who will guide the City of Greater Shepparton’s affairs for the next four years.
Yes, the voting ballot pack goes out today, voting by mail closes at 6pm on Friday, October 25, all postal votes must be received by noon on Friday, November 1, and all election results will be declared on Friday, November 15.
Interestingly for me, the election is already over, sort of.
Sortition, that is the choosing of people for any similar role, from Federal Parliament down, by random selection has determined our council for the next four years, at least according to my little experiment.
However, Rod Schubert is on his way to the council chamber to being elected unopposed in the Midland Ward, and Cr Sam Spinks, also unopposed, returns to represent Poplar Ward. Both were the only nominations for their respective wards.
And so, with two wards decided, the sortition process, that’s random selection, was applied to the remaining seven wards.
The nominees for each ward went into the hat, so to speak, and the results were:
Balaclava Ward — Rudo Makombe; Goulburn River Ward — Simon Wyatt; Lower Goulburn Ward — Eddy Kieron; McEwen Ward — Steve Threlfall; Pine Lodge Ward — Phillip Chua; Yanha Gurtji Ward — Tom Saxton and Kialla Ward — Terri Cowley.
So, the question is, will our “new” council work, will it make effective decisions for the broader wellbeing of our city generally and you and me specifically?
But before jumping to conclusions and declaring sortition as nothing but ratbaggery, allow these people some generosity and remember that, however you see them, they all have capacities that frequently remain hidden until ignited by responsibility.
Sortition, at least as applied to Greater Shepparton’s coming elections, has ended the local government careers of the present mayor, Cr Shane Sali, and sitting councillors, Anthony Brophy and Fern Summer.
All three are reasonable people, and although I don’t necessarily agree with some of their ideas and policies, the trio have worked tirelessly to shape a city that reflects their values and so, in their view, make Shepparton a better place to live.
Whatever course the council vote takes, there will be casualties, personal favourites will fail, and people about whose abilities and capacities of which you are absolutely unaware will succeed, and shine.
Scanning the ambitions and promises of some candidates suggests that many people don’t understand the complexities of administering a city such as Shepparton.
“Back to basics” is the catchcry of some, but we live in a complex world and, of course, within that, we have a complex community here in Shepparton, and despite what some ache for we are never going back to those so-called “good old days”, which considered forensically, and stripped of their romanticism, were not really so good at all.
I live in Yanha Gurtji Ward and Tom Saxton is not such a bad choice, so how did sortition, and random selection, go in your ward?
Sortition is democracy unleashed and ideally, rather than call for nominations, the names of all eligible residents would “go in the hat” and from that would come the names of the nine people who would populate the chairs at Greater Shepparton City Council.
Should you be keen to learn more about sortition, check out this TEDx talk by Brett Hennig at tinyurl.com/b7csz6wk
Robert McLean is a former editor of The News.
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