Anger at Clarence Council public meeting refusal

Disbelief, anger, and dismay were expressed by the Rosny Hill Friends Network and 1,204 signatories to an
electronic petition to the Clarence Council calling for a public meeting about a proposed large-scale tourism
development on small Rosny Hill, a nature recreation area.

The petition was tabled at the Clarence Council meeting on 28 May but the Council has, under the Local
Government Act, up to 72 days to organize the meeting. A motion by an Alderman that the Council, on its
own initiative, holds a public meeting sooner was defeated. Mayor Chipman stated on ABC radio that the
timing was ‘interesting’. Council intends to delay holding a public meeting until at least July 18, and the
network suggests the development application may in the meantime be advertised and decided upon,
making any public meeting uncertain.

Rosny Hill Friends Network Convener Peter Edwards expressed the community’s anger at the Council’s
refusal to face its electors at a meeting.

“The Clarence Council first used ratepayers’ money to buy an external legal opinion that electronic and paper
signatures to a petition cannot be combined to make up the required 1,000 signatures, although it appears
the Director of Local Government disagrees with that opinion. We therefore had to go back and collect more
signatures, losing us 3 weeks. The many mature age ratepayers without computers who signed the paper
version of the petition were excluded from the democratic process.”

“Mayor Chipman pretends there has been public consultation over this contentious development over the last
few weeks, but there has been none, just two inadequate information sessions where people were basically
told what was going to happen. The development application was lodged before the sessions. The Mayor’s
idea of a public meeting is one where, once the development application is advertised, people can make
written representations, several can speak at a Council meeting for 3 minutes, and then witness Council
making its decision as a statutory planning authority. Clarence Council is doing all it can to avoid facing its
ratepayers and electors and listening to them, using obstruction and delay, and treating them with contempt.”
Rosny Hill Friends Network Convener Peter Edwards