Newcastle Greens councillors have taken comments from a NSW Liberal Upper House MP quite literally by knitting in an open council meeting.
Councillors Charlotte McCabe and John Mackenzie took part in the stunt during a Lord Mayoral Minute opposing cuts to Commonwealth Government financial assistance grants after NSW Upper House MP Taylor Martin told councillors to "stick to your knitting" in state parliament last month.
Mr Martin made the comments in response to Liberal councillor Callum Pull's unsuccessful notice of motion seeking the elected council to signify support for a future navy base in Newcastle. The motion was opposed almost all other councillors, including Liberals Jenny Barrie and Katrina Wark.
"I make this point and I make this plea here tonight, particularly to representatives of local council and local council wards across the City of Newcastle: stick to your knitting - roads, rates and rubbish," Mr Martin said last month.
"Do not insert yourself in a very important area of policy for the future of Australia, where it is not needed local government to be."
Cr McCabe said those comments were "offensive and absurd" and while she was "actually quite fond of knitting", she won't abide by "him telling me or any of us what we can or can't discuss".
"How dare he tell us what we can and can't discuss in council meetings," she said.
"Of course the proposal of a nuclear submarine base in Newcastle is hugely significant, and while I wouldn't have raised it on the agenda myself, I certainly wanted to make a firm stance against the proposal and to reiterate Newcastle's long held commitment as a nuclear free city."
"He clearly has very little respect or understanding for the value of local government which makes me question his understanding of democracy generally.
"I felt we needed to push back against his offensive behaviour with a statement that makes it clear we do not answer to him, we answer to our constituents.
"I certainly hope we will not see this sort of behaviour from Mr Martin again, because if we do I'm going to feel like I have to bring in a jumper with a really complicated pattern and maybe some sort of knitting and pedalling and it's going to get very ugly.
"I'm just warning him because I'm sure that none of us would like to see that."
