Power to the people

THE Shire of Cardinia has highlighted a move to improve its community consultation model to actively engage residents of the shire.
This comes in response to comments in The Mail on Tuesday, 27 September by Emerald Village Committee chairman, Ed Chatwin.
Mr Chatwin said: “The State Government was moving local government away from public consultation to some yet unspecified process.”
He said this new process would debase local elected representation in favour of more power in the hands of paid council employees.
However, council’s manager of governance and communication, Doug Evans, said that was not the case, but that the government was moving to implement a community engagement model.
“There are various forms of community engagement and everyone has different ideas and concepts of the process,” Mr Evans said.
Mr Evans said this would enable the council to move to being in a position to effectively engage with the community.
He said community engagement model would give the community an opportunity to have a say on important processes such as putting together a new Emerald Strategy.
“This way local residents can raise any critical issues arising in the community and have their say so that the strategy is owned by the community,” Mr Evans said.
Mr Evans said moving to a more community active model of consultation will give residents a chance to have their say on a variety of issues.
He said in the case of the Emerald Strategy, consultation has to be something the community wants, which means actively engaging and having input into the development of the strategy. “The council is wanting to change from consultation to actively engaging the community,” he said.