by Cr Ingrid Jackson
I WILL NOT BE STANDING FOR RE-ELECTION – HERE’S WHY
I will not be standing for re-election to Noosa Council at the election to be held next March. I will not be offering myself as a candidate – either for mayor or as a councillor.
It is a decision I have considered for many months. And it is a decision I take for mixed reasons and with mixed feelings.
I am making my announcement now – more than five months ahead of the voting – because I want to give time for capable people in our community to consider whether they should offer themselves for election.
Our community needs experienced, knowledgeable, hard-working and ethical people to lead it. It needs people who are concerned for others and who understand that Noosa Shire needs to be well governed if it is to effectively address the many challenges it faces.
People have five months to stand up and communicate with the community about how they can provide it with the leadership it requires. I am willing to assist capable candidates to do this.
Let me discuss why I will not be standing again.
The community elected me to the important role of councillor and during the course of this four year term, I have done the best I could for our community.
I have been a consistent advocate of openness, disclosure, evidence-based decision-making, procurement probity, merit-based selection, and for the council to adopt a more balanced and compassionate approach to residents’ issues. I shall continue to do this every day until a new council is elected next March.
I also greatly enjoy representing the people of our Shire.
Of course, I regret that I could not have done more, but I have learned that this is the nature of politics.
When I was sworn in, I believed that, as every councillor was elected as an independent, the community would expect each of us to exercise that independence in the interests of the community.
My understanding was that we would research, consult, scrutinise, question, debate and honestly account for every decision we made.
I did not anticipate that scrutiny and questioning might be seen as unfriendly acts. I did not expect that the expression of ideas and positions contrary to those held by the majority of councillors would trigger hostility.
On many important issues I found myself in a minority of one, with the others tending to operate as a group. Not always, but mostly. For me, being in a minority is fine. But it is not fine if it attracts aggression or scorn, as it did too many times.
I believe that, as independent councillors, we have a duty to understand issues in detail, to assess whether proposed solutions are in the shire’s best interests and to advocate and pursue matters according to what we judge to be their merits, not necessarily on what we are told may be their merits.
But our most important duty is to represent all the people of this shire, not some narrower interests.
There was considerable pressure on me to conform, right from the early days of the current council. In fact it was made clear from the beginning that, once elected, councillors were to work, not as the independents the community thought it had elected, but as a team that would operate in solidarity.
There were directions given about unity and the need to acquiesce to the team. To me, these instructions stood at variance with our role as independently-elected councillors, and even contradicted the legislation and rules that govern councillor behaviour.
I was disturbed and unhappy with these attempts to corral me into being a reliable supporter of decisions that too often seemed to be predetermined and which I was supposed to accept without protest.
When I began to express contrary views on certain issues – an independence given to me by voters – it was too often met with hostility.
There have been official complaints made about me – ten at last count – by other councillors and by allies of the dominant group in council. After formal investigation, eight have been dismissed or assessed as without substance, unsubstantiated or frivolous.
I am now dealing with two others received just recently. Each official complaint has imposed its own considerable stress. I believe them all to have been politically inspired.
Being the only woman councillor has made such antagonism even more isolating and oppressive.
That said, I have always felt the support of most of the community – and I cannot tell you how important that is and how it has been instrumental in keeping me resolute for four years. There are many good people in our community.
With their support, good legal advice and a personal determination to open Noosa Council to better governance and greater transparency, I feel I achieved some success.
This was especially the case when cameras were brought into the council chamber and our major meetings began to be video-streamed – an initiative I had to fight for, and be humiliated for, before it was finally approved. Similarly, it is only due to my efforts that council minutes now finally record how each councillor voted.
Occasionally during these four years I may have stepped back from taking positions I should have taken; I could not be as strong as I would have liked to have been all the time. But I have done my best.
During my time as a councillor, I have always endeavoured to enhance democratic process, good governance and the interests of the community.
But too often my efforts have fallen on fallow ground.
Democracy dies in darkness and it withers when too much happens in the shadows behind closed doors, and beyond the cameras.
Unelected influencers should never be accorded the ability to steer decisions, or to derive benefit from them. Elected representatives should never allow themselves to be rubber stamps for preconceived positions.
Noosa Council still has much to do and I believe it is in need of reform and first-class leadership.
This will be a massive job for someone of extraordinary capability and knowledge and, after giving the matter careful thought over many months, I do not believe I have the experience and stamina to lead the required transformation.
Nor can I continue to effectively represent electors as a minority councillor. I do not want another four years of what I have just experienced. At the age of 67, I think it is time for others to step forward.
I know my decision not to recontest as a candidate will disappoint many people. But I hope to encourage new councillors of potential – including more women – who are willing and have the talent, strength and integrity to take on the job.
As for me, I look forward to spending more time pursuing the many enjoyable things in life that, over the last four years, I have had to set aside.
I will look back on these past years not with undiluted affection but as an important time in my life when I contributed what I could to make our community a better place.
And I will regard being councillor as a special time when I met and worked with very many people I am glad I live amongst.
