By TONY MOBILIFONITIS
WE at Cairns News are pretty well convinced of the argument that councils are corporations and that as such, those who run them, the officers and councillors, are fully and commercially liable for harm of loss caused by their actions.
The reason for this is that councils operate under state Local Government Acts and these Acts themselves describe councils as being corporations registered for GST with Australian Business Numbers (ABNs) and a Dunn & Bradstreet number (DUNS) and are therefore legally required to be audited annually by a Certified Practising Accountant working for Dunn & Bradstreet. Most, if not all councils, are also insured by JLT Public Sector.
One Aussie battler who has put this argument to test is Gary Oraniuk, a former CFMEU union representative from Geelong, appears to have won at least two rounds in ongoing battles against the City of Greater Geelong, which from 2019 had been threatening to impose bike lanes along a commercial strip in Belmont, to the detriment of some 55 local traders, by wiping out roadside parking bays.
These so-called green initiatives, which come under the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), have been happening across the world without the approval of ratepayers or residents of municipalities. They have simply been imposed by way of so-called “community consultation” slight-of-hand processes involving green NGOs and SDG policy imposed from above.
At a meeting in 2019, Oraniuk verbally noticed (see 42min50s) the council’s officers and councillors that they would be held personally and professionally liable for the traders’ losses and the vote on the matter matter was privately deferred for three and a half years until July 26th 2023, when it was brought before the council again.
That is when Oraniuk issued the council with a written notice, reminding them that the council was in fact a corporation without lawful government authority and subject to full commercial liability for all harm, injury and loss perpetrated on anyone. He also noted that such payouts would have to be covered by the council’s insurer.
The council again deferred the vote at the July 26th meeting and a month later the local newspaper reported that the council had scrapped the bike lane contract altogether. We are not aware that the council admitted liability, but nonetheless Oraniuk won by default.
The only other action involved was a petition signed by traders and taken to State Parliament by Andrew Katos MP. Oraniuk said a trader later admitted to him it was the notice, not the petition that swayed the council. Oraniuk says petitions are little more than toilet paper, as they are mere requests with no legal force.
“I left it (waiting for a few weeks) for Daniel Andrews or one of his honchos to barge in and say ‘you’re getting it (the bike lane) whether you like it or not’. It didn’t happen,” said Oraniuk. “I probably would have gone and sued Daniel Andrews.”
However, the council is proceeding with another similar plan called a “green spine”, which has prompted Oraniuk to write another lawful notice. The council has a new CEO after the previous one resigned and he will be noticed in particular as CEOs run the corporate councils.
The process of noticing councils should at least spur the interest or further investigations by local ratepayer groups, but several of them approached by Oraniuk rejected him. Council Watch Victoria Incorporated not only rejected, apparently on “legal advice”, the reality of council corporations being liable, but a representative threatened to sue him for defamation.
The defamation threat stemmed from comments Oraniuk made in one of his Rumble videos titled “Are Your Ratepayer Groups Actually Genuine?” In the video he reiterates his main “campaign” point that councils are incorporated businesses, not governments, the latter point based on two referendums rejecting Constitutional recognition of “local government”.
“But these ratepayer outfits allegedly representing people just refuse to admit that full commercial liability applies to everything that councils do – your local council. Yarra (Ranges council) is a prime example of a renegade council,” he said. However, when Oraniuk called Dean Hurlston, president of Council Watch Inc. and Kelvin Granger, president of Ratepayers Victoria, attempting to get them to listen to his case, both hung up.
Peter Mitchell of Ratepayers Geelong emailed Oraniuk back, insisting that councillors were not liable for anything and that they do and were in effect “the board” of the council. On the latter point Oraniuk agreed, saying they were indeed the board of the council corporation who approved polices, developments, etc.
“The point of this video is the fact that these ratepayer representative outfits are not doing their job, as far as I can see, and I regard them as just gatekeepers maintaining the status quo and they are not holding the local council, in their jurisdiction, to account about anything,” Oraniuk said.
Granger was quoted in an ABC report from May 2022, complaining that councils all around Victoria were becoming less open and transparent, apparently ignoring changes to the 2020 Local Government Act which “emphasised the need for more community consultation and transparency” but with no legislated requirement for public question time.
Granger, of course, wasn’t able to offer any solution except to stamp his foot and tell councils to stop it. We also note that Granger, on his Facebook page, publicly attacks Senator Gerard Rennick as “a fasics (sic) pig” and “a self-intitled (sic) extremist right-wing dickhead”.
Hurlston meanwhile, didn’t take Oraniuk’s online comments well and emailed him threatening legal proceedings for defamation, having sent the critical comments to his lawyers. “This kind of crap is dangerous and simply causes many who believe it more financial and psychological distress. Grow up and get some real legal advice,” Hurlston wrote.
Cairns News has emailed Hurlston asking the reasons for his rejection of what we see as reasonable, fact-based assertions by Oraniuk about the corporate nature of so-called “local government”, and why his group could not at least put the assertion to the test, given the plague of unaccountability among councils.
In a prompt reply (kudos for that) Hurlston then showed his real colours. “Thanks for your email. I have read in detail the background of your organisation. I will not discuss Gary Oraniuk with you as I would be wasting my time. Please do not contact us again, we only deal with reputable news media.”
So, one would have to ask to what lengths Council Watch would go to ingratiate themselves with the mainstream media. Across the board in Australia, media portrays councils as totally legitimate “local government” ostensibly run by elected councillors and the political parties that many of them represent, and which sees community organisations like My Place as an existential threat.
The media has also been running articles warning the innocent population of sinister, right-wing groups like MyPlace seeking to get their people elected to councils.
Hurlston’s biggest concern of late is apparently is Melbourne Lord Mayor Sally Capp parking her limo illegally on a footpath outside the town hall. Yes, it’s misconduct noted by all, and Hurlston’s deep concern won him a single, short paragraph in the Herald-Sun saying Capp should pay the cost of her limo trips out of her allowance.
Hurlston beats the drum, like many others, for councils to stick to roads, rubbish and footpaths, but without offering any real solutions except perpetual whining on his Facebook page and endless unproductive exchanges.
Alan MacGregor, a spokesman for another group called We Are Watching You Local Councils Australia, also took offence when Oraniuk explained to him the reality of councils being corporations and businesses.
While both agreed that councils don’t have proper standing under Australian law, MacGregor seemed fixated on his demand for his “2024 Hero Challenge” to find someone who can “prove the authority of a local council as per the 1901 Constitution, show us where it allows a council to charge you for a parking ticket, where it allows the council to charge you rates levies and issue fines, and to show which of the eight constitutional changes made since 1901 allows the UN involvement in Australia” and other such constitutional matters.
Oraniuk offered his own challenge for the council watchers to look at his videos and see if they fitted “the Hero” bill, namely the video on rates and payment issues, how to make a claim against a local council based on the claim process coming from the insurer of all councils in addition to other council videos on his Rumble page.
“What I did holding my Geelong council to their commercial liability, affects every corporate council in Australia, as I have outed them. Not a bad effort, I think,” Oraniuk wrote in an email. But MacGregor was not impressed when Oraniuk suggested he might be muddying the waters with his approach.
“Read my post properly before you say one more word you moron,” MacGregor shot back. “If you feel so compelled, share it to those people that think they can be That hero, stop preaching to the choir go and troll someone else. I stand under article 61 (of Magna Carta) moron… wake up and read properly.”
MacGregor thenlet loose again (grammar corrected): “And furthermore what’s your qualification mate, who are you? You seem to know what you’re talking about and you cannot see a solution right in front of you. Confront your local council, ask them to be the hero and explain those five things to you. As you know, they cannot and by doing so they admit their part in a crime.
“Why do you think we are calling for the hero that can try answer the unanswerable? Why do you think that is you, moron? Ever heard of reverse psychology? What have you done? A few videos? Moron, I have done 10 times the vids you have, woken up a lot more people than you ever will and I will continue to do so.
“Look at my pages, the videos on any Washroom Studio page… get a handle on yourself moron and understand who the real enemy is before gobbing off to the real difference makers.” And that repeated use of the “you moron” invective sadly ended any future useful relationship between Oraniuk and We Are Watching You Local Councils Australia.
So MacGregor’s “gotcha” tactic will apparently blow up the great Australian local government scam by forcing every councillor and officer in the country to admit they are criminals? We would suggest he would need some good luck with that little operation.
Oraniuk has more than just the bike lane case to prove his point. A friend of his made a claim against the Great Geelong Council over illegal drainage and was paid out by council’s insurer who sent a representative to the final negotiation. “Stan had spent 47 grand and 11 years fighting the council …. I coached him as to how to go about making that claim. Around $20k’s worth, and maybe another to come, because the matter has not been resolved, so the council has not acted in good faith, and another claim will likely stand,” he said, because the drainage problem has still not been fixed.
But not even that was enough to convince the feisty warrior MacGregor that there might be some value in Oraniuk’s commercial law approach that he picked up from the work of US law activist and judge Anna Von Reitz.
Oraniuk’s battle meanwhile, is far from over. He says Geelong is rapidly moving towards the 15-minute city model with high-rise developments being pushed everywhere across the city. In the meantime he urges people being pushed around by councils to tackle them on the issues of “no contract, no jurisdiction”, liability of officers and councillors and withdrawal of consent – even to the point of suburbs seceding from regional councils and contracting their own service providers.
Tony B: Municipal Works Officers Association get a lot of work from councils-lots!!!
chrystalage: Dean Hurlston is the partner of the Mayor of Stonnington.
Sam, with his Bill of Attainder comment, might like to see this, the Bonding stuff being sent to my local council along with my friend’s (the one who originally found JLT, by ringing around) claim amounting to around $7.5 million. The Bonding material was sent under the heading of INSTRUCTIONS as an appendix to his claim. And it is what binds corporate councils, via straight commercial law-and it is interesting to see who the Lien was laid against:
https://annavonreitz.com/commerciallien.pdf
And this lady knows her stuff.
And an interesting one from her about lawyers, as the cherry on top:
https://annavonreitz.com/fakelawyer.pdf
I had no option or opportunity to see the article before publication; but to clear it up about Suzanne Burns; posts with MacGregor and others appeared with her name together with MacGregor and others, (I have no access to the page any more, so cannot go and rehash who said what) whom I challenged to confirm or deny that they were lawyers, as I thought they might well be. MacGregor was abusive to wards me, so I posted that he might be breaking the Page rules, to no effect. I will give as good as I get, and did, as I will not suffer what I think are trolls, gladly. There was an O’Neill chap that I challenged about lawyers status, to no avail-none of them fessed up or denied, with the simple Yes or No I asked for. So what is not denied is accepted. Suzanne seemed pretty partisan with my opponents, as far a s I can see. I got kicked of the Page (and there were no tears from me about that, I can tell you) great even though I was the one initially abused. Suzanne is welcome to post the actual thread, if she wants?
Their bond insurer is Jardine Lloyd Thompson Australia and how they enforce their will onto us is by each party being involved in an inchoate crime beginning with the Councillors and ending with the auctioneer engaged in what is deemed a Bill of attainder ( Local Government Regulation) a rather repugnant form of punishment that has no right of appeal and no contract in commerce in its application and seeks to entitle them to adverse possession when in actual fact the Crown through the “Deed of Grant” grants the lawful holder all the rights and appurtenances whatsoever. They are committing crimes also against the Crown and us with immunity. We hold a contract with the Crown through that “Deed of Grant”. Problem is that there is no Chapter III Courts to seek remedy. Time for the People to occupy our empty dejure Parliament under the Common law of England and the Constitution Act 1900 (UK).
Instead of petitioning the Corporation that is not representing the People. Quit begging them to change their ways, we need to step back into our parliament instead of pleading for change, it will never happen our public servants have switched and made us the public servants…
When no-one turns up at the “Rats nest” they will have to deploy their ELRAD somewhere else and surely there must be enough good souls to fill the original parliament under the Crown sigal to create a dejure parliament beholding and serving the People that stands under Common law of England.
The Admin team of ‘We Are Watching You Local Councils Australia’ read this article with interest and disappointment. Simple language is the only way
to deliver cold, hard truths to Australians who are hearing them for the first time. As such, we take no issue with the article until the 25th! paragraph
where inaccuracies creep in. The author must have become bored and forgotten the golden rule to check facts before publication.
Our Facebook group, ‘We Are Watching You Local Councils Australia’:
1. has NO spokesperson, not Alan Macgregor or anyone else. Any difference of opinion that Mr Macgregor expressed and argued was his right. It did
surprise (and entertain) us that a debate between two adults went downhill so quickly but that remained their business until group rules were broken.
2. did not end its relationship with Gary Oraniuk because the word ‘moron’ was used. He knows the true reason.
3. is NOT aligned or affiliated with any other council watch group(s). Although not stated in the article, it could be wrongly presumed by readers.
We invite your readers to join us if they wish to connect with other people in their council areas about issues of concern – anywhere in Australia. How they
get together, what they do about issues and how they do it is completely their choice.
ABN Lookup > Entity types > Local Government Entity
Local Government Entity
According to the A New Tax System (Australian Business Number) Act 1999, government entity means:
(a) a Department of State of the Commonwealth; or
(b) a Department of the Parliament established under the Parliamentary Service Act 1999; or
(c) an Executive Agency, or Statutory Agency, within the meaning of the Public Service Act 1999; or
(d) a Department of State of a State or Territory; or
(e) an organisation that:
(i) is not an entity; and
(ii) is either established by the Commonwealth, a State or a Territory (whether under a law or not) to carry on an enterprise or established for a public purpose by an Australian law; and
(iii) can be separately identified by reference to the nature of the activities carried on through the organisation or the location of the organisation;
whether or not the organisation is part of a Department or branch described in paragraph (a), (b), (c) or (d) or of another organisation of the kind described in this paragraph
Thanks for raising 15-minute city models. Here’s the Transcript from Brian Venten’s youtube on Smart Cities and 20-min Neighbourhoods. It’s very informative and helpful for us fighting these plans at the council level.
Hi my name is Brian Venton and today I want to talk about the concept of the 20-minute neighbourhood cities that we’re starting to hear a lot more about in Australia and I want to give some background context and then look at Townsville itself and then consider a local response but first some background context.
The World Economic Forum is embedded in Australian politics and I never quite realized how embedded they were until I saw a video about former PM Scott Morrison being interviewed by the World Economic Forum and seeing that interview surprised me significantly and started to make me ask a lot of questions.
Now secondly the Smart City’s idea is a product of the World Economic Forum and the United Nations and they are tied in with Agenda 30 and it’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals or what’s called SDGs. Now the Agenda 2030 plan was formalized in 2015 and adopted by the UN and all member countries as signatories including Australia were obliged to adopt all of the SDGs.
Now most people don’t realize this but the Australian government’s coordination and implementation of Agenda 2030 is led by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and also the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet itself.
Now soon after the SDGs were launched by the UN, Australia produced its first Voluntary National Review. It was called a VNR of how Australia planned to implement the SDGs and it was launched in June 2018 by The Honorable Julie Bishop when she was Minister for Foreign Affairs and was delivered the next month to the United Nations High-Level Political Forum on sustainable development. Now you can see from this very brief overview that Australia irrespective of any political persuasion is up to its neck in this global agenda and more embedded than most of us probably realized.
Now let’s look at the Townsville context.
Back in 2021 the Intelligent Community Forum which is an international Think Tank driving community change recognized Townsville as one of 21 top Global Smart Cities along with Newcastle and Melbourne in that year. In fact, Townsville is again being listed in 2023 for recognition along with Geelong and the Sunshine Coast this time. For this recognition to be occurring action has been on the go for many, many, years. Townsville Council formally gave the green light to the 20-minute smart concept in October 2018 not long after the VNR was first enacted by Julie Bishop. That was when Council officially approved what is called the Smart Townsville Community Partnership policy and we’ll look at this a little bit more closely in a moment.
In my view though the Smart City concept and particularly the 20-minute component of Smart Cities have been conveniently obscured from public knowledge. They were kept obscure in all of our Federal elections both in 2019 and 22 and we’ve also today heard nothing about them in State elections although Victoria, it’s to be noted in 2019, did start running some pilot programs that were working models and were working on models as early as 2016. I suspect that the idea of 20-minute neighbourhoods won’t be discussed in the New South Wales election period until after next weekend and also in Queensland until probably after our local elections in March next year and probably not until after the Queensland State election later in 2024 in October. Now why the obscurity? Well, I suggest they don’t really want to rock the boat and alarm people especially with the 20-minute neighbourhood aspect of the Smart Cities. Our job is to start rocking the boat a bit and make people aware of what is happening and how they will be impacted. Now in Townsville there are layers of interconnected organizations both local and international that drive the 2030 Agenda. The narrative and the messaging however are closely controlled and easily shut down by a dominantly partisan Council and progress unhindered in line with internal agendas. Now partisan politics is invariably an enabler to drive partisan outcomes and that’s what’s happening in Townsville. If you have unfettered control over process like Townsville Council has and for that matter many other councils throughout Australia then you can do almost what you want at will at a local level without much pushback. Now local organizations here in towns will include the Smart Precinct NQ which was set up by five North Queensland Mayors in conjunction with input from our local University James Cook University and this compact includes Townsville, Burdekin, Charters Towers, Palm Island and Hinchinbrook Councils and you can read about it online. Then there is the Intelligent Community Forum which is the global network of collaboration between councils that I referred to a moment earlier. Then there are organizations like C40 Network which is over a hundred councils globally and also the global Covenant of Mayors for climate and energy which already has 30 Australian councils and cities aligned with it. Then there is the Townsville City Deal and that’s a 15-year deal signed back in 2016 which runs right through to 2031. It was the first deal of its kind formed and is a compact between the Federal government, State government and Local Council and it also drives the Smart City agenda in our local context. Now this deal is what is pumping millions of infrastructure dollars into our region. Then you’ll have a body called the Townsville Future Cities which is a council body. It was set up in 2011 and has driven much of the Smart City concept both in its early days and in its current circumstance. Now the Smart Townsville Community Partnership mentioned before is a key explanatory document and follow the thread as I briefly look at it and see where we end up and you can access this publication online. The publication proposes five core pillars. One, delivering an open and engaged Council, two, implementing a citizen centric Council. The terms open engaged and citizen-centric are a bit of a misnomer in my view. We’re expected to believe council is collaborative but narratives are controlled and any dissenting voices can be easily excluded by a partisan Council and the third pillar facilitating Innovation and Entrepreneurship and economic development but look at point four focusing on place making and liveability. Now that caught my eye and made me ask what does that really mean and we will look at it a little bit closer in a moment. Then the fifth pillar is delivering best practice infrastructure and asset management. So, point four focusing on place making and liveability and it covers six areas and I want to look at them now. Supporting art and cultural development and includes things like Stadium V8 strand pool kids water park Jezzine Barracks The Aquatic Museum rebuild etc and I suggest keeping people socially serviced is an important dynamic for a 20-minute neighbourhood to actually function in our area. Then second create accessible digitally connected vibrant and safe precincts. Now this that’s quite loaded. It’s a loaded statement. It makes use of everything Ai and camera surveillance technologies. As of December 22, last year you may not realize this but there are 537 cameras that have been installed locally around Townsville. Now we’re told they are for infrastructure monitor infrastructure but they also state in their documentation that they are for public safety as a secondary purpose. Now you can imagine where that might lead to. Then thirdly they want to improve access to real-time journey planning for public transport. That’s an interesting phrase as well. It’s very important I suggest to have well thought through Transport Systems for a 20-minute neighbourhood to function effectively.
The goal is to reduce our carbon foot footprint in the name of a climate emergency and reduce a vehicle or the use by 50 percent by 2030 but there’s more. They want to improve data collection relating to Event Attendance to support future design implementation and decision making. Often this starts in a socially acceptable way but could easily be morphed into other purposes that we are currently not aware of. Then five, develop a Townsville Barometer and you can see that actually operating. It’s called the Townsville Dashboard which you can look up as well. And finally, and note this, the goal is to establish Townsville as a 20-minute City. That is the stated objective for Townsville. It’s in black and white but note though at the moment you can’t find anything specific on what constitutes a 20-minute City.
Nothing on any Council website is easily identifiable. Perhaps because council elections are coming up in 12 months’ time and they don’t want to kind of stir up the waters too much. Perhaps because they’re still thinking through the logistics and I suggest there’s a lot of logistics to be thought through for regional implementation of 20-minute neighbourhoods. Perhaps because they’re wanting to get all the infrastructure completed first. Perhaps because we just haven’t looked hard enough to find where their planes are, what their plans are. There is though another document titled the Liveable Strategy 2020-24 which has a lot of 20-minute neighbourhood ideas embedded in it but without actually mentioning the words.
So now let’s consider a response to all of this that we can take locally. What could we do to make a difference and I want to suggest six responses or pathways forward. First, we now have a policy model being rolled out in Victoria that potentially will set a national precedent for other jurisdictions throughout Australia. Now I suggest that that’s a good thing because at least we know the shape of what is planned or could be implemented across the country out of Victoria. Now can you imagine though being confined to live in an 800 meter radius living zone. They argue that they have no intention to restrict movement but international document documentation and lived experience overseas indicates very differently. Secondly it means that pushback is occurring worldwide particularly once people began to notice what was happening in Oxford in the United Kingdom and we can learn from the approach that others are taking and draw down on that those reference points for our own local circumstance. And third and this is a little bit different and something you may not have thought about and I would argue that the 20-minute City is a moral issue and it’s not a political one. Now let me flesh this idea out for you a bit. There is a fair bit here to understand but I think it’s important to make this point.
In 1991 James Hunter wrote a book called The Cultures Wars he saw playing out in America’s fights over abortion gay rights and religion in public schools and since then of course a lot more has been happening globally in the whole culture wars scenario. But Hunter made a very pertinent observation back then a long time ago about the difference he saw between political issues and the culture war fights when he said this. He says on political matters one can compromise but on matters of ultimate moral truth one cannot. Now my argument is that we should not view Smart Cities nor the 20-minute neighbourhood aspect to them so much as a political issue but as a moral one. Now why is that? It is a moral issue because we are being told how we are expected to live and if you read the documentation a choice has already been made for us by others telling us what is best for us and we are expected to comply and all line up in agreement. Now let me illustrate from one part of the Victorian legislation. In Victoria they argue if they can reduce vehicular usage by 50 percent by eliminating short trips then they will save perhaps 160 million dollars on their state budget. But on the surface that sounds like a great idea as a political argument but the issue is really a moral one. They really want to limit your ability to move and control your goings and comings because we’re facing a catastrophic climate emergency if we don’t keep global temperatures below 1.5 degrees. That’s the real motivation here. I’m inclined to think that the Climate Emergency legislation introduced both in Northern Territory, Victoria and South Australia will at some point be used to enforce control of movement in our lives.
A 20-minute City is about changing the way we do things to live in zones where everything we need is within a walk to and from your home in an 800 meter radius of where we live. They will never declare this openly because the public won’t buy it but the secret is getting out and people are becoming very aware of broader intent. So when Klaus Schwab says you will own nothing and be happy that is a moral statement. It’s not a political one. Or when Kevin 07 Kevin the Prime Minister back in 07 said that climate change is the greatest moral challenge we will face in our generation that too was a moral statement. It’s not a political one. And when Prime Minister Rudd used the word moral that was the day I really started to wake up about climate and politics and look where all that has brought us to today. Now I don’t know about you but I don’t need Klaus Schwab or Kevin Rudd or Scott Morrison, elbow, or Dan Andrews, or any local mayor for that matter to define for me let alone determine for me what will make me happy. That’s the issue. It does mean that we should ask some questions though. What are you and I prepared to accept as morally appropriate for our lives? What constitutes a line in the sand for you and for me that you, where you, can articulate a moral position statement on the rightness or the wrongness of a 20-minute neighbourhood and how it affects your life and my life and those around you. As a strategy I suggest we need to argue our case more from a moral basis and the better we do that the better will be our impact in getting people on side. Now let me make a suggestion. As you read and research any documentation do so through the filter of a moral looking glass. Try and understand what is being said in terms of right and wrong and then try and articulate a case that resonates with the community about why a course of action might be inappropriate for your community. Now this leads me to the next point. The fourth one. Try and discern who and what are the key drivers behind any issue and join all the appropriate dots. Be a researcher and an investigative journalist. Often there’s a DOT here and a DOT there and a DOT on another page and try and relate the normally unrelated. Read between the lines and try and discern what is not being said as much as what is being said.
Now Kate Mason recently put an excellent video together. It’s very good and she makes some very pertinent points about our approach to pushing back on Smart Cities and I suggest you look her up. Go to one of our Facebook pages and listen to it. They’re out there. Maria Zeee from Z media also put a very good one out a couple of weeks ago which comes at it from another angle.
But the fifth response, the fifth pathway forward, council elections are coming up in March 2024. Back in 2020 Mayor incumbent Jenny Hill declared that team Hill looked like doing a clean sweep of all the councillors in Townsville. As it turned out one Independent Susan Blom division two got elected and then when Les Walker went to Brisbane as an MP in the State election Fran O’Callaghan won Division 10 as an Independent and that was quite a surprise. So team Hill has nine councillors in their voting block in Council and Independents too and it seems to be a pattern across Australia that anyone standing as an Independent is often kept out of any information loop. Now this is true in Townsville as well as many other places and what this means is that team Hill in a Townsville context votes virtually all the time as a block on policy. So, I decided to do some checking out. I checked the council minutes for the last seven months and of the 153 motions put 118 of them were unanimous votes and the rest that is 33 motions were still carried but with dissent from the Independents. And then there were two motions that were put up by the Independents that were also subsequently voted down by the block. And note this though of all motions there were only two occasions in seven months where block counts as voted against the block and they were only for minor concerns. Now what does this mean. It means that nothing changes because team Hill controls both the presenting agenda and the agenda always progresses unimpeded. Now somehow I think we have to change that paradigm. As a strategy we should identify where we can impact next year’s election in March to change partisan Council decision making and I suggest that we could use the 20-minute neighbourhood concept as a driver for that change by informing our local population.
Now the sixth path has to do with legislative options that we could pursue to create leverage as well. Now freedom of trade and movement in accordance with our national Constitution section 92 says that trade within the Commonwealth is to be free. On the imposition of uniform duties of customs, trade, commerce, and intercourse among States whether by means of internal carriage or ocean navigations or whatever it shall be absolutely free. So if we can somehow demonstrate that Smart Cities have the possible intention to limit movement and trade across jurisdictions then that could be a vote shifter locally. Then there is the inconsistencies of laws aspect of our Constitution in section 109 which states when a law of a State is inconsistent with the law of the Commonwealth the latter shall prevail and the former shall to the extent of the inconsistency be invalid. Again, if we can demonstrate that aspects of the Smart Cities or the 20-minute neighbourhoods contravene this law then we may have pushback at that level as well. As a strategy we have to create as much leverage we can to push back against the 20-minute neighbourhood concept for our town. Now I hope you found this particularly helpful today for your own circumstance. Remember always be willing to count it as a possibility that your view of reality is an impoverished view. The things that appear are not always as they seem.
Thanks for watching. We’ll talk again. Bye.
[end of Transcript]
daviddd2,, said:
“In NSW Councils are POLITICAL ORGANISATIONS given certain powers by Govt legislation.
“They are NOT government, they are NOT corporations but they are subject to state laws as if they were corporations.’
Thanks for the info.
Not governmentm but there they are under the LOCAL GOVERNMENT ACT 1993 and The Office of Local Government.
“(4) A law of the State applies to and in respect of a council in the same way as it applies to and in respect of a body corporate (including a corporation).”
I suggest that they act as if they are corporations, and local govrtnment, by way of shonky legistation that fools the sheeple.
Smoke and mirrors, I reckon the sheeple would like the mirrors part.
In Queensland they just throw what they have done in your face.
In NSW Councils are POLITICAL ORGANISATIONS given certain powers by Govt legislation.
They are NOT government, they are NOT corporations but they are subject to state laws as if they were corporations.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT ACT 1993 – SECT 220
Legal status of a council
220 Legal status of a council
(1) A council is a body politic of the State with perpetual succession and the legal capacity and powers of an individual, both in and outside the State.
(2) A council is not a body corporate (including a corporation).
(3) A council does not have the status, privileges and immunities of the Crown (including the State and the Government of the State).
(4) A law of the State applies to and in respect of a council in the same way as it applies to and in respect of a body corporate (including a corporation).
A couple of years ago I spoke to a civil contractor mate of mine he told me that he would be invited to tender for civil works within our shire but kept on missing out he decided to dig around a bit and he found out his competitors wife was working in the tender department hence there was no way he could win a job because of it, so he gave up on quoting anything for them. I used to do a lot of council footpaths, miles of them in our shire I had a crew of men specifically dedicated for the paths but due to corruption I was gradually muscled out I refused to cave in to the corruption its not part of my makeup, its like a cancer ,councils are corrupt just like the rest of our fake government structure, and our elected councilors are powerless to do anything to represent their constituents they should have testicular fortitude to push back against their bureaucracy and represent their constituents.
I actually saw this type of corruption during a planning permit process that I lodged , I wont say which shire ( spa country anyone ) my consultant and myself were going into the council meeting to discuss the permit, one of the objectors was openly lobbying his councilor on the footpath outside the council building to knock the permit on the head or else, I heard that as we were walking in, that particular objector had his tentacles deep within the council as a ex councilor and two term ex mayor so I had no hope, it wound up costing me a lot of money for no gain, its called deep seated corruption, its deeply ingrained and part of their corporate structure in my opinion, if you resist there are no favors for you sports fans.
The same happened to another contractor, he was waiting for months for a planning permit he did everything properly and he kept the pressure on, and one day he accidentally got an internal council email from the shire which he wasn’t suppose to get, and that email was scathing against him verging on defamation
he made an appointment with the ceo of the shire showed him the email which would be a wonderful weapon against them, you wouldn’t believe it two days latter the planning permit arrived, he still has that email for future reference. So there you go this is the type of system that we are up against.
Thats because you are really dealing with these fkrs!
Credit Nikola 3 on X
https://x.com/ronin19217435/status/1570130456238231553?s=20
To know whether the “board” is liable or not you would need access to their insurance details. In the case of 5 minute cities etc., everyone reading this should go to their council and make a Freedom Of Information request concerning any correspondence between the council or its agents and the World Economic Forum and its agents, then write it in the comments or forward it to the Editor so we all may be enlightened. Most councillors are there for the kickbacks, the spouse is a developer and so forth, so they delight in making things harder for small traders, especially if there is an aircon mall nearby.
I am a subscriber but I cannot open and read your emails have you changed something?
I initially found an interesting article, written in 1879, on the Trove Newspaper/Gazette website referring to an ‘act’ in 1840 by Governor Gawler (South Australia) who brought in Local Government: Municipal Corporations. Haven’t checked out the Gazette issues on Trove yet, but think this is worthy of note for SA only >>>https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/43089550?searchTerm=%E2%80%9CLocal%20Government%E2%80%9D%20%E2%80%9C1840%22 >> Did some more digging and found this one relating to Sydney dated 1839 >>> https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/226455068?searchTerm=%E2%80%9CLocal%20Government%E2%80%9D%20%E2%80%9C1840%22
Thought it might be of interest to CN & your many readers!
I approached one of these “legal heroes of the people” once, requesting advice on how to sue a corporation that made me homeless, and was instructed to pay first. When I eventually get around to paying out the backlog of heroes who put knives in my back, I bet they squeal like stuck pigs.
Meanwhile, the rest of us will continue the people’s struggle without recompense.
We are aware of the argument around the legality of councils under State Government “residual powers”, but there are various views also concerning alleged unconstitutional actions by councils that States should prohibit or restrict, such as the imposition of rates – a form of taxation.
The things we are FORCED to do, to bring accountability, is beyond belief. Good on this man for challenging these ‘morons’ ….. BTW: The link in your article to We Are Watching You Local Councils didn’t work for me, but this one did:https://www.facebook.com/groups/wearewatchingyoulocalcouncilsaustralia/
Hmm. I went to a CW meeting late last year and walked away scratching my head thinking what the hell was that about. Apart from a lot of bloated ego, no real solutions. This article confirms my thoughts.