Monday 17 September 2007

Do you know your Local Transition Committee members?

The members for the Local Transition Committee for the Cairns Douglas Regional Council are:

• Cr Kevin Byrne, Cairns City Council (Chair)
• Cr Terry James, Cairns City Council
• Cr Mike Berwick, Douglas Shire Council
• Cr Melinda Cox, Douglas Shire Council
• Steve Rodgers, Australian Services Union
• David Groessler, Australian Workers Union
• Ed Taylor, Queensland Council of Unions (lives in Wide Bay)
No community representative was appointed

Everyone voted en mass, except Berwick and Cox, for both the Chairman and the Closed Door meetings. The story doing the rounds is that the Union hacks did this because they felt threatened with Berwick's love of Australian Workplace Agreements and his desire to implement these in Port with his staff. The Unions don't want a bar of this and therefore thought they'd not give Berwick the time of day.

His Arrogance the Mayor (stolen from a clever poster yesterday!) says that they didn't want a "circus" if the meetings were open to the public, something about being accountable or such. He thought that there'd be too much interjections on the actual merger rather than the new Council. Fair point to a degree. However that can be easily managed, and at the cost of allowing access to the population and the voters, this move along will cost our China Syndrome a great deal come a Saturday in March.

You can contact the committee:-
Local Mickey Mouse Committee
Cairns Douglas Regional Transitional Committee
C/- PO Box 359
Cairns, Qld 4870
k.james@cairns.qld.gov.au

The first meeting was held on 4th September, and the next meeting will be at 10.00am, Thursday 27th September, also at the Cairns City Council Chambers, 145 Spence Street, Cairns.
...but please don't show up to the meeting, because you're not welcome. It's a boy's club. Melinda is merely a boy in drag.

Not surprising, Douglas doesn't even get a chance to host a meeting on their turf.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hope they all brought a towel.

Anonymous said...

If the Local Transition Committee wanted closed meetings to avoid a circus, how come the committee is a five ring circus run by a clown?

Anonymous said...

Shame on these Stalinist hacks in the union movement.

What a disgrace they are to the finer traditions of the labour movement.

Perhaps, Michael, you could invite them to explain here precisely why they (like Byrne) prefer closed meetings to openness and public accountability?