AN EMOTIONAL councillor Jason Pauling has launched into an unrelenting criticism of Lake Macquarie council's decision to publicly stand behind an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.
Tensions flared in a debate that carried on for over an hour earlier this year, where the council ultimately voted to support the Voice, the Uluru Statement from the Heart and to find opportunities to raise awareness about the referendum.
On Monday night, it was clear those feelings remained unresolved after Australia and the Hunter's decision to resoundingly reject recognising First Nations people in the constitution with an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.
Struggling to collect his thoughts, Liberal Cr Pauling, who is Indigenous, said it was the "most stressed" he's ever been in a council meeting and he was "scared to express" his thoughts for the impact it might have.
"Fair to say somewhere between 60 and 70 per cent of residents of our city voted no," he said.
"It's very difficult for me that A) we chose to speak on this, B) we chose to take a position and either, to my mind, we have a superior sense of morality above our residents which I don't think is fair, it's not for us to take a position so out of whack with what our residents thought, or we're out of touch with our residents.
"I thought we made a mistake at the time and I spoke against it then, but looking back now I'm very confident we made a mistake and I really question why we did it."
Labor mayor Kay Fraser brought the initial notice of motion to the table in May, sparking a lengthy debate about whether the local council should take a position on a federal issue at all.
Come October's vote count, in the Hunter, Newcastle was the only federal electorate to record a Yes majority vote.
It sat at just 29 per cent in the seats of Hunter and Paterson, and 39 per cent in Shortland.
Cr Pauling said there's "no doubt" there is now more "division and prickliness" between First Nations people and non-Indigenous people.
"I think we contributed to it by taking a position," he said.
"I understand that this is probably confronting, maybe insulting and I don't mean it in that way - I'm just trying to express the angst and turmoil that I feel inside that I suspect is shared with some others.
"I'm cranky, disappointed, bitter maybe, that council had the audacity to vote to support something where our residents didn't - I think we made a huge mistake."
He admitted it was the most emotionally vulnerable he had been in council chambers in more than a decade.
"I'm about to burst into tears if I tell you the truth, because I don't know how we got into that situation," he said.
"We have this conflict, we have the decision and it's really, really hard to move forward and we played our part in making that worse, notwithstanding our good intentions."
At the initial vote, councillors Jack Antcliff, Colin Grigg and Nick Jones stood beside Cr Pauling in arguing publicly supporting the vote was outside the council's wheelhouse.
Liberal Cr Antcliff's position hadn't changed on Monday, opposing Cr Pauling's decision to bring the issue to council again.
"Notwithstanding, I think this is an opportunity and a line in the sand for us to continue or press forward with the work around reconciliation this council and this city does," he said.
He suggested the council could be part of a team that leads a regional Reconciliation Action Plan.
Hitting back at Cr Pauling's statement, mayor Fraser said she felt supporting the Voice was the right decision.
"Sometimes as the mayor and councillors we have to take a leadership role, we have to make decisions and not everyone is going to like that decision but you put your hand up to be a leader - sometimes you make those decisions," she said.
"For me it was about doing what I thought was right; what I thought was right for this nation, what I thought was right for our First Nations people.
"The Voice was recommended in 2017 by a group of 250 Indigenous leaders who met at Uluru, a landmark sandstone rock in Central Australia that is a sacred site to traditional owners.
"We must now respect the decisions made by Australian voters, just as the Uluru Statement from the Heart was an invitation extended with humility, grace and optimism for the future we must meet this result with the same grace and humility and that's what I would ask from all councillors."
She said the council wasn't there to "be on show" or talk about "what went wrong" or the results and said it was now time to come together as a council.
