By Suzanne Thomas

In December 2021, Port Phillip Council canvassed ‘Expressions of Interest’ from residents and ratepayers to be part of a Deliberative Panel to review a proposal for a new method of calculating Rates and a Waste Charge. What is a Deliberative Panel you may ask? A Deliberative Panel is established to respond (what do you think) to a given proposal. The Panel does not approve, decide or vote on the proposal, it simply provides considerations to Councillors.

Council’s proposal was in two parts:

1. Change to the method of rates valuation from Net Asset Value (the net rental value of a property or 5% of CIV) to Capital Improved Value (value of land and buildings)

Port Phillip is one of only four local councils out of a total 75 local councils to use the NAV of a property to determine rates. The stated purpose of the Rate Strategy review was to increase transparency to the Community of the principles by which Ratepayer’s $135 million contribution to the Council budget (2021/22) are set and give consideration to the changing operational environment within the City of Port Phillip to ensure compliance with statutory requirements.  

2. Separate out a new flat waste charge to fund existing and new waste services from the general rates

The introduction of the new Waste Charge is proposed as a way of collecting additional rates and charges revenues to fund increasing waste costs for the mandatory introduction of food waste and green waste services, a directive from the State Government. Food and green waste bins are already enjoyed by many LGAs but are yet to be implemented in Port Phillip. 

Twenty seven people were selected in a process independent of Council. In responding to Council’s proposal, the Panel needed to reach consensus on both proposals (consensus being 80% agreeing). Over the 5 video workshops totalling 12 hours, some key themes emerged: Human Behaviour, Containment and Mitigation of Costs, Benchmarking and Fairness.

Issues were discussed by the Panel with documentation developed for Councillors in the final session.  It was extremely impressive to see the energy, passion and intelligence of the panel members and their constructive participation in the process.  However, the workshops raised more questions than answers, with Panel members asking a total of 88 questions of Council during the process.  Council’s responses and information were provided too late for many participants, reducing the capacity for informed discussion as we progressed through the workshops.

Two additional Q & A sessions were set up by Council outside the workshop timeframe of which only a minority of Panel members could attend. The process began to lose credibility with some panel members, some becoming frustrated and losing faith in the process, and some questioning whether Council’s motives were genuine or merely a ‘tick–box’ exercise. Some members thought that the facilitator belittled panel members and many thought that the workshops lacked structure, detailed content and cohesive flow.  Panel members felt pressured to respond to issues presented to them with insufficient information or time to discuss pertinent issues.

In the end, many on the panel considered the process to be flawed because of the facilitation process and the slow response from Council officers to panel questions. The Panel members were ultimately not able to reach 80% consensus on either part of Council’s proposal.  The vote was 72% in favour of moving to the sale value of a property as a calculation of annual rates and 35% strongly agreed/agreed (12% neither agreed nor disagreed and 52% opposed) to separating a Waste Management charge from general rates and charging a separate Flat Waste Levy of $161 in the first year and increasing in subsequent years to fund the new waste services. There were only 17 of the 27 original Panel members present at the final workshop.  The only thing most members agreed on was that the process was a missed opportunity.  Council must take action to regain the confidence of the community by increasing transparency and reliability in its decision making and demonstrating it is performing well relative to other municipalities.