FREMANTLE council’s bid to ditch January 26 as Australia Day got a huge boost on Tuesday, with the national peak body for councils voting to lobby the Turnbull government for a change of date.
The Australian Local Government Association’s general assembly voted narrowly (64-62) in support of the move, with the organisation’s board to meet in July to map out a campaign strategy.
Late last year Freo council caused a huge stir by ditching its traditional Australia Day activities, earning censure from the Turnbull government which threatened to take away its power to hold citizenship ceremonies.
Mayor Brad Pettitt says this week’s ALGA vote was an “interesting and unexpected development”.
“It is good to see that this conversation is continuing around the nation,” Dr Pettitt said.
“There is a long way to go before there is wider change, but from little and local things, big national things grow.”
You may be missing one valuable bit of info, seems that not even 25 % of councils turned up for vote.
Maybe they knew attendance would be poor so they put on the vote when they had the strongest support group
Herald – never let the facts get in the way of a headline. Of 560 councils – 126 bothered to turn up to the item on the agenda. 64 votes out of 560 is not even support – it is a display of vague agreement from a very small minority of local governments that don’t seem to have any idea of their roles as local government councillors – I pity their ratepayers.