In what promises to be next week’s most talked-about issue across our suburbs, Liverpool Councillor Mr Peter Ristevski has put forward a highly contentious motion for consideration.
Ristevski is asking Council write to the Minister for Local Government, requesting that the public inquiry hearings beginning in June be live-streamed, by the Office of Local Government as part of the Inquiry into Liverpool Council. Ristevski stopped short in the motion of using stronger words like “insist” or specifically requesting a venue with full streaming facilities, but it seems the intention of the motion is to send a strong message that residents want the truth and are determined to uncover any wrongdoing.
A cryptic comment in reponse to the motion in next weeks agenda was from new CEO Jason Breton, who commented in the agenda “Further representations can be made to the Commissioner if Council required.”, suggesting potentially that Council might also actually appreciate a very transperant process from start to finish perhaps.
Nathan Hagarty Member for Leppington has also hit out strongly on social media before the Easter break supporting the need to live stream the upcoming hearings.In a statement received by localpulse.press earlier today, Mr Hagarty said:
Given the importance of this Public Inquiry, live streaming the hearings, where appropriate, would help ensure transparency and maintain public confidence. With local media coverage in decline, residents deserve the opportunity to stay informed and engaged. If you believe these hearings should be accessible to the public, I strongly encourage you can contact the Inquiry via email on LiverpoolCCInquiry@holdingredlich.com
As we get closer to the new airport opening, the timing of this inquiry couldn’t be worse for Liverpool residents, A massive number of Code of Conduct matters are now outstanding at Liverpool Council totals an alrming 67, as oppossed to just 5 in the previous year as reported by Skynews .
Council recently wrote to the OLG outlining that they could no longer afford resources to attend to the complaints. No further comment has been made by council at this time.
Other improvements to the motion that the Council may consider include making a range of translation services available to reflect the over 6% of Liverpool’s population that speak little to no English, according to idforecast.
Liverpool LGA English Statistics: “Overall, 39.5% of people speak only English, and 9.8% spoke another language and English not well or not at all, compared with 57.3% and 6.4% respectively for Greater Sydney,” according to idforecast, reflecting the need to potentially do things a little differently in the best interests of transperancy. Given that language was last measured by idforecast in 2021, and considering the significant Australian migration in the last four years, it could be considered to be much much higher.
Councillor Peter Ristevski said in a statment:
“The nature of these inquiries is technical and sometimes complex, we should try our best and give access to everyone to not only see the hearings “live” as they happen, but also later on demand… in residents preferred languages. Real democracy in Liverpool is something we should all aspire to, and we can all share in this one conversation.
In Liverpool, NSW, the most spoken language is English, with 39.5% of residents speaking it at home. Other languages spoken include Arabic (13.1%), Vietnamese (5.3%), and Serbian (6.5%), among others. A significant portion of the population, 53.8%, uses a non-English language at home.
The matter goes before Liverpool Council on Wednesday evening. You can watch the meeting LIVE on YouTube here. This really is a MUST attend Council Meeting.
Need to know more?
Please join us the following morning on 89.3 when we have LIVE in studio Liverpool Councillor Peter Ristevski, who is coming in to update the community from 9:30am – 10am. If you would like to follow us on facebook our page is https://www.facebook.com/localnewspulse/. Please refrain from making defamatory statements on our facebook page.We do however encourage productive smart conversation that might help Liverpool move forward. Email your questions to Councillor Mr Peter Ristevski right here at the station: bj@893fm.com.au and we will ask him on air.
You can download any of our recent shows here.
Michael and I look forward to taking the Pulse in Liverpool on Thursday with you all.
Happy Easter Everyone.
