Shoalhaven Mayor Joanna Gash tabled a mayoral minute at Tuesday night’s ordinary council that recommended limiting conference attendances to three per councillor per year.

Crs Greg Watson and John Wells moved a motion calling for a councillor briefing on the matter. 

The issue of conference attendance erupted two weeks ago when it was revealed five councillors and two staff members attended a conference in Western Australia at cost to ratepayers of more than $20,000.

This was just two weeks after several councillors attended the Local Government Conference in Sydney at a cost of $10,000 and were criticised for not attending networking sessions and leaving early.

Cr Gash said she was happy to see the matter deferred so councillors could be armed with more information.

“I have made no secret of the fact that I have had concerns about the ongoing costs associated with councillors attending numerous conferences,” she said. 

“Conferences provide councillors with the opportunity to further their knowledge on specific issues and network with other stakeholders and councils, making them more effective councillors.

“However this needs to be weighed up with the fact that council is currently undertaking a transformation with a view to cutting costs.”

One of the critics of the cost of conferences, Cr Andrew Guile, was disappointed by the deferral. 

“After all the public talk, the matter was sent to a briefing.

“We need to get back to transparently publishing expenses on line. The summary that is currently there on council’s website is an attempt to hide the detail. 

“After promising she’d do something about it, Mayor Gash has done nothing,” he said.

“If the Mayor was truly committed to bringing some accountability back to the situation, then she would not have agreed to a deferral. We could have had an open and honest discussion on the floor of council and by now there would be a policy in place. On Tuesday, we approved yet another couple of conferences – one of them in Alice Springs – that still have no policy to govern councillor eligibility.

“Given that four out of five of the councillors who took the Mandurah trip were from Team Gash, it is obvious that the Mayor is out to look after the interests of her friends in all this. 

“This is a failure of leadership on the part of the Shoalhaven Mayor. Tough talking doesn’t solve these problems and a lack of action is the true indicator of how genuine the Mayor really is about stopping the conference rorts,” Cr Guile said.