Randwick Mayor Philipa Veitch has addressed protests at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and outside the offices of US arms manufacturer Lockheed Martin in Matraville.
A few councils and senators have been standing up on this issue and it’s great to see elected officials getting involved and not afraid to take stances. Veitch is a Greens member, so they have party support there, but it’s still nice and encouraging to see some support within certain governments (despite my reservations with current electoral politics).
Greens and Labor councillors combined to vote against the motion, which was defeated by 10 votes to five.
The motion was amended to remove the vote of no confidence and became a motion condemning anti-Semitism and Islamophobia and acknowledging the council’s role in promoting community cohesion.
I wonder what that means in practice, will supporting human rights protests like this violate “the council’s role in promoting community cohesion”?
[Liberal councillor who launched the motion] Cr Rosenfeld told ABC Radio Sydney local politicians should leave international affairs to the federal member. “We’re in the local sector of government, not the federal sphere,” he said.
hahaha this is just silly. Of course a local politician should be allowed to care and engage with international politics. Particularly in Randwick, one of the areas with a major university involved in the war effort (e.g. weapons manufacturers connections to campus), their local area is relevant to international affairs so they shouldn’t just block their ears and offload responsibility because it’s over 10 kilometres away.
Of course a local politician should be allowed to care and engage with international politics
It’s what the LNP does all the time. If it’s a policy they agree with, they’ll happily support motions like this. For example, BCC’s overwhelmingly LNP-dominated Council supported a Greens-brought motion when the Afghan government fell, supporting the Afghan people and calling on the federal Government to support them and take in refugees. Or more recently, they started complaining about the state Government’s 50 c public transport trial not coming with additional investment in vehicles around Brisbane. And it worked. The state Government did come and also promise additional services.
But any time they don’t want to do something, they’ll use the excuse that it’s a state or federal concern, even when they know perfectly well that that’s not necessarily completely true, or when they know that they could at least be putting political pressure.
