It was our intention to invite a cross-section of Greater Shepparton citizens to nominate their ideal council ahead this month’s election, as we have in the past.
And our promise was that we would publish those choices this week.
It soon became clear that a significant majority of the people we approached — several of whom had made public their choices in the past — felt quite uncomfortable doing so under the new ward structure.
Their reluctance points to a serious flaw in the multi-ward system — a system that nobody asked for and few in the region supported. And a system foisted upon us in an ill-conceived process that made no allowance for the particular circumstances of our city.
The problem is this: several of the nine wards have multiple candidates who would make excellent councillors, but only one candidate can be elected from each ward. Most of the citizens we approached were uncomfortable being asked to choose between two or more equally worthy candidates, whereas under the old single-ward system, nine preferred candidates could be sensibly ranked.
We are equally reluctant to make those choices and can offer no guidance to our readers, other than urge careful consideration of the candidates’ statements, which have appeared in our pages in the run-up to the election.
The fact that two candidates — Rod Schubert in Midland and Sam Spinks in Poplar — will be elected unopposed while other wards have up to six candidates is another illustration of a poorly conceived-system — one that seemed to lump Greater Shepparton in with similar sized regional cities without any regard to what would work for us.
The idea that multiple wards would result in a more diverse or representative council is a nonsense: while residents may only vote in their own wards, there is no requirement that candidates should live in the ward they purport to represent.
The choices facing ratepayers — many of whom still don’t know which ward they live in or are voting for — resemble a lottery, more than an opportunity to elect a competent, well-balanced council. We will have more to say about it.
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