Has Pandora’s box already been opened by the Napthine government’s Sunbury out of Hume poll?
Premier Denis Napthine reportedly prefers it remains shut, but speculation continues as Sunbury councillor Jack Ogilvie insists Local Government Minister Jeanette Powell has all the ammunition she needs to bring in commissioners – “a Wangaratta solution” as one onlooker called it – to extricate Sunbury from the rest of Hume.
As mayor of Hume in 2000, Cr Ogilvie asked then local government minister Bob Cameron to hold a poll, which the minister recommended be undertaken alongside council elections because of the high cost of a stand-alone poll. The poll did not eventuate.
RELATED: Vote spawns uncertainty about future
The stand-alone poll on October 25 this year fulfilled an election promise by the Liberal-led state Coalition government to test the waters with voters across the whole of Hume.
Slightly more than 50 per cent of those eligible returned their ballots. Of those who did, 60 per cent overall said “yes” to letting Sunbury leave Hume council.
In the Sunbury area itself, 67 per cent of returned votes said “yes”, as did 64 per cent in Diggers Rest and Bulla. And 59 per cent of former Bulla shire ratepayers at Craigieburn also offered to show their former neighbours the door.
Is this a conclusive vote? That’s the conundrum for Mrs Powell and her team at Local Government Victoria.
“I am now carefully considering the results as to whether to establish a local government panel, as required by the Local Government Act, to provide advice to the government on any changes to the municipal boundaries,” the minister told the Weekly.
Meanwhile, Cr Ogilvie has already extended the boundaries of his envisioned new shire to include Tullamarine and the airport, a move never envisaged in the poll put to the people.
He told the Weekly he believed Hume councillors would “get the flick” about August next year to make way for commissioners to come in and divide up the assets. “Commissioners will have to come in and they won’t just be running the shire of Sunbury,” Cr Ogilvie said.
This view runs counter to what the minister told the media, however.
“The current Hume city councillors were elected last year to serve a four-year term,” Mrs Powell said.
“At the state and federal level, electorate redistributions take effect at the next general election.
“If there was to be any change to a municipal boundary, it would be reasonable to introduce any new arrangements at the next municipal elections in October, 2016.”
