HCC: Payments for Aldermen

Margot Giblin

So, is it a job? If so, what sort of job? Does it need a tighter, more explicit description? What do residents expect and what should they be entitled to expect? If there is a component of civic duty or commitment to community in an alderman’s motivation should this effect remuneration?

The attempt by Alderman Helen Burnet to see an end to petrol allowances for life for some ex aldermen has spread to a debate on work expectations and remuneration for Hobart City Council Aldermen.

Present allowances are:

Alderman $12,422.40 pa.

*Deputy Lord Mayor $16,045.60 pa.

*Lord Mayor $78,534.40 pa.

*These allowances do not include their aldermanic allowance.

The difference in time individual aldermen make available for Council work varies, as does the amount of time they make available to other paid work.

For some there is the ability to maintain full or part time jobs with all the benefits these carry with them, including superannuation. The Deputy Lord Mayor, Eva Ruzicka, however who has no other paid employment and appears to treat her Council commitments as a full time job yet will receive no superannuation for her efforts.

There is a vast difference in the amount of time and effort each alderman puts into researching issues related to individual agenda items and to the energy they put into committee work and debate at any meeting. Some confine themselves to what they already know, presented as folksy anecdotal musings while others relate facts or views garnered from their past studies or present employment. Some show they have read the Council officers’ reports in detail, others don’t.

Some spend hours making site visits, attending lengthy meetings with residents, responding to their phone calls, letters and emails as well as accessing available scientific or other relevant research. Others are unable to last the length of a council meeting.

Relations with the public and adherence to the aldermanic code of conduct are also interpreted in widely differing fashions. Applicants and objectors to proposals before Council are greeted with anything from chummy recognition of an old mate to derisive dismissal from the intolerant gods.

Aldermanic responses to each other and to media commentary ranges from logical considered responses focusing on the issue to ego driven rants which reveal the aldermen as seeing themselves as the centre of everyone’s world.

Some aldermen are pro-active in bringing new business to Council while others confine themselves to reacting to whatever finds its way onto the agenda.

So, is it a job? If so, what sort of job? Does it need a tighter, more explicit description? What do residents expect and what should they be entitled to expect? If there is a component of civic duty or commitment to community in an alderman’s motivation should this effect remuneration?

The idea of a fixed number of consecutive terms of office recurs as a possible way to go – a suggestion put up by both aldermen and their electors. Three consecutive terms maximum (ie twelve years) with an additional term for Lord and Deputy Lord Mayors is one possibility. This would not preclude taking a break and coming back. New ideas, fresh energy and continuity would all get a look in.

It would appear that the Hobart City Council is on the cusp of significant change in terms of reasonable expectations of its aldermen and given that an election will be taking place in October perhaps now is the time to come to grips with what aldermen should be asked to offer the city and how they should be paid.