Councillor pay up for review

By Sarah Schwager
POOR pay is diminishing the quality of local councillors.
That’s the view of Casey mayor Colin Butler, who, along with other Casey councillors, has come out in support of raising councillors’ salaries.
The State Government this week announced it was reviewing Victorian councillor wages, with the likelihood they would rise.
Cr Butler said the $18,000 a year wage for Casey councillors was a poor reflection of the amount of work the councillors put into their jobs.
“I don’t think there’s a councillor on this council who doesn’t put in up to 40 hours or more a week,” he said.
Cr Butler said only self-employed, teachers or part-time workers could really consider serving on council.
“The quality of councillors is diminishing because of the level of allowance,” he said.
“Residents are not necessarily getting the best people they could to represent them.”
Four Oaks Ward councillor Paul Richardson said while he believed councillors deserved some pay increase for the amount of work they did, he did not believe the figure should rise any higher than $21,500 a year.
“If the Government decides on more than that, then the remaining money should go to organisations – the needy ones,” he said.
Deputy mayor Kevin Bradford said councillors didn’t run for council for the money, but a moderate increase might affect the quality of councillors who decided to run.
“If we do have a significant pay rise, though, there needs to be some commitment from councillors that they are going to do the hours and willing to turn up to all the briefings and events,” Cr Bradford said.
He said he believed the rise should not be massive and suggestions at Casey Council a couple of years ago of increasing councillor wages to $95,000 were ridiculous.
Councillor Rob Wilson said increasing councillors’ pay was more than justified.
“A couple of years ago the VLGA (Victorian Local Governance Association) did a major review of Member of Parliament wages and there was a huge furore about having full-time paid MPs,” he said.
“Now everybody accepts that paid parliamentarians is part of the process.”
Cr Wilson said as it stood at the moment, councillors were merely “glorified volunteers being paid an allowance”.
He said most councillors worked 30 to 50 hours a week and so deserved some compensation.
“It depends on how effective people want their councillors to be,” he said.
Municipal Association of Victoria (MAV) president Dick Gross said councillors needed much more money.
“We don’t have expectations of a bare minium or an absolute maximum,” Cr Gross said.
“I can say that councillors should be paid a lot more.”