Why Newcastle Citizens for Local Democracy?

Newcastle Citizens for Local Democracy formed in August 2009 in response to concerns in the grassroots Newcastle community about the rapid decline of local democracy in the city of Newcastle, New South Wales.

These concerns centre around anti-democratic tendencies that have emerged in the city's governance since the local government elections in September 2008.

Those elections resulted in Newcastle Council being dominated by conservative independents (mostly from the John Tate and Aaron Buman tickets), who have set about dismantling local democratic structures, processes and practices that had been established in the mid to late 1990s and early 2000s.

This has been aided and abetted by an equally anti-democratic council administration, headed by a relatively new General Manager, with a new senior management team.

These anti-democratic actions have included:

• Reducing the number of council meetings (and increasing behind-closed-doors workshops),
• Cutting council funding to - and effectively removing council support from - Community Forums, which allow people in local communities to come together to discuss issues that affect their communities,
• Placing the award-winning Loft youth venue (an avenue for input into council by young people) on a two year funding review cycle (after an attempt to cut it altogether),
• Involving representatives of the Hunter Business Chamber (who represent big business interests) in the appointment of senior council staff,
• Cutting the annual, independent community surveys conducted by the Hunter Valley Research Foundation,
• Abusing established formal meeting procedures, such as notice requirements for business at council meetings, and then using numbers to vote down dissent on such abuse,
• Abuse of the confidentiality provisions in the Local Government Act [s.10A (2)] to conceal decisions that should be made in public (including a radically new council organisational structure),
• Nod-and-wink decision-making in secret councillor-staff "workshops" that operate contrary to Department of Local Government guidelines, and take place away from the view of the media and the public,
  
• Continually using the "guillotine" (i.e., moving "that the motion be put"), to cut off full council debate of major issues,
• Ignoring requests from members of the public for information on council processes,
• Failing to consult the community on important council matters, such as the approval of a major commercial music festival in a public park adjacent to residents, in a location (Wickham Park) that has never had such an event before,
• Continually favouring vested interests over community interests in development decisions.

Ironically, this is all happening as Newcastle celebrates 150 years of local democracy.