Last Tuesday Randwick City Council quietly accepted a Greens initiated motion that will prohibit serving Councillors from receiving Council initiated awards.
This year eyebrows were raised when the Council’s Community Services Committee voted to give it’s own chairperson an award on Australia Day. Contemptuous comments appeared on local web sites.
The award recipient, No Parking Meters Party Councillor Charles Matthews, was present while the committee deliberated. He latter announced that he was running for the State upper house.
Serving state and federal politicians are prohibited from receiving Randwick Council awards but not Councillors.
Greens Councillor Murray Matson, a non-member of the committee, labeled Matthews’ award “inappropriate” and committed himself to stopping it from happening again.
Cr Matson said after this week’s decision to close off the loop-hole,
“There is no way that the granting of the award to the No Parking Meters Party Councillor was not politically motivated. A number of Councillors are courting his vote for next September’s Mayoral elections. Matthews wanted the award and they gave way to him. What gets me is that some of my colleagues seemed genuinely surprised when the community noticed and started laughing.”
When asked why the loophole had not been close earlier, Matson replied,
“I guess nobody thought that a serving Councillor would be tacky enough to go after one of these awards – let alone the chair of the committee that gives them out. Councillor Charles Matthews certainly blew that assumption out of the water.”