The Greens have one job to do in suburban Melbourne.
Earlier, at the 2020 election at Yarra city council, the party won five of the nine seats, with socialists picking up two. The Labor party failed to secure a single spot on the council.
It was an embarrassment for the ALP, with the party growing increasingly frustrated at inner-city areas shifting their vote more progressive while it also tries to hold on to its more traditional voter base across the state.
It also served as a warning for the upcoming state election. The federal seat is held by the Greens leader, Adam Bandt, by a comfortable margin, while the state seat of Richmond is in play after the popular Labor MP Richard Wynne announced his retirement.
All the Greens councillors have to do is prove they can govern in their own right, in accordance with the party’s values.
Since the 2020 election, the council has consistently made headlines for all the wrong reasons.
Socialist party councillor Stephen Jolly says people are now thinking: “Jesus Christ, when we voted the council where seven of the nine councillors were either Green, or socialists … we did not expect Thatcherite policies.”
Jolly refers to proposed – but dropped – council policies on increasing fees for sporting clubs to use facilities and shooting down the redevelopment of a small amount of council land in Collingwood, as well as a not-undertaken option to ban alcohol use in a local park.
“You would expect that from the major parties. But people expected better from the Greens – it’s like when you’re betrayed by your own family member.”
The state government had proposed 200 units be built on public land in Collingwood. One-fifth would be social housing, with some funding from the government.
The Greens shot it down. The council argued it would have gifted the land to private developers. The state government argued the Greens have rejected social housing.
“It’s interesting how the framing of it is so persistent and yet it was a private development. It was a gift to a private developer,” says the Greens mayor at the time, Gabrielle de Vietri.
De Vietri is no longer mayor.
Last year, councillor Anab Mohamud went on medical leave while fighting charges over an alleged assault outside the Chasers nightclub, which hosts LGBTQ dance party Poof Doof, in South Yarra. Mohamud said in a Facebook post in January she has faced delays in the legal process and cannot tell her side of the story.
“I’ve learned how slowly justice comes. Sadly, I am still not in a position to be able to share with you all that has happened to me. I will once the legal process has run its course.”
But her leave meant the Greens’ five-person majority was reduced to four, and the other members of the council sought a new mayor to replace De Vietri.
It took a total of four meetings to elect a new mayor, with a deal eventually reached for Sophie Wade to keep the position in the hands of the Greens.
The process looked dysfunctional from the outside.
Media analysis provided by Streem show only two Victorian councils in the past 12 months have received more media coverage than Yarra. City of Melbourne leads the pack with close to 5,000 mentions in the past year, followed by Casey – which has been the focus of a corruption scandal with 492. Yarra is in third place with 284.
The reality for residents
Wade says she’s not too worried about the reporting on the council and believes people are more focused on what is happening on their own streets.
“What I emphasise is not to focus on the negative but to see what’s actually happening on your street and see what it’s like when you try to engage with your councillors because I think for most people, that’s a positive experience.”
In its 2021 customer satisfaction survey, Yarra recorded 6.85 out of 10, which is recorded as a “good” response and just under the metropolitan average, but is the lowest score for the council since 2013 – though the council in a statement noted the context that half the city’s services were closed at the time.
The main issues raised by households had nothing to do with the headlines.
Some of those surveyed said the council has done a good job during the pandemic, praised the building of better bike paths and were grateful for the introduction of glass recycling. Others complained about communication with council, rubbish and recycling and rates.
Shortly before Wade became mayor, the council’s chief executive left for another job and Victoria’s local government minister, Shaun Leane, announced the appointment of a municipal monitor after the new mayor’s election.
The Labor government cited the time taken to appoint the new mayor and other concerns.
De Vietri, who is now on parental leave from council and will run in Richmond in November, says Labor is feeling vulnerable and she wondered about the motivation for the monitor’s appointment.
“I think to me, that sets the political context and it does make me wonder what actually is the motivation for this appointment?” she says.
Leane’s office did not answer questions about whether the appointment was political, but a spokesperson says the monitor was appointed “following thoroughly canvassed issues and risks with its governance”.
“We look forward to seeing Yarra city council shift its focus to the priorities and challenges facing the local community, led by its newly elected mayor and with the support of the monitor.”
Leane later announced monitors for Darebin city council, Moira shire council and Wodonga city council.
“[Local government is] not a very well-respected and strong tier of government in Australia,” says Dr David Hayward, professor of public policy and the social economy at RMIT.
He says Yarra tends to have a good calibre of councillors and administrators, but believes the main problem with local governments is they have limited powers, which leaves their successes at the whim of state governments.
“What tends to happen is state governments see them as basically a pawn to implement their policy agenda,” he says.
Jolly says the best thing the Greens could do to keep the progressive residents in Melbourne’s inner north happy would be to stick to their policies.
“If they implemented those policies locally, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. By doing that they’ve left a window of opportunity.”
But Wade says that is exactly what the council is doing, running off a list of projects – including getting pool facilities off gas, transport projects and expanding open spaces – as key priorities.
“A lot of our areas are industrial and are really suffering now from the fact that we’ve got a huge number of residents moving in but we haven’t got these beautiful old parks that residential bits of Melbourne do like Edinburgh Gardens,” she says.
“We’re making a whole lot of strides to try to change that now.”
• This article was amended on 17 April 2022 to clarify that banning alcohol in a public park was an option but not a proposed policy; to add context to the council’s customer survey results; to clarify the timing of the resignation of the CEO and the appointment of a monitor; to correct the state government’s proposal that half of 200 units built be social housing to one-fifth; and to clarify the nature of De Vietri’s leave from council.
