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Council Deny Elected Officials their Voice! · The Slippery Slope

• 0:10
  Oh, I'm Jay Fallon. Thanks for listening to the
• 0:13
  slippery slope. Hey, does anyone else miss the
• 0:15
  days when councils, you know, they just did the job that
• 0:19
  councils were supposed to do? You know, they had their Shire,
• 0:21
  their specific Shire. And that, you know, the the
• 0:24
  officials were voted in, they're elected and then they just, they
• 0:28
  just did, they performed the duties of the elected officials
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  and basically just running the Shire, you know, making sure the
• 0:36
  garbage was picked up on time all the time, making sure the
• 0:41
  that we had clean water available, making sure all those
• 0:44
  amenities were kind of were running properly smoothly.
• 0:48
  I kind of missed the days when that's all councils did, you
• 0:51
  know, their actual flipping job. But hey, gone are those days.
• 0:57
  No councils have decided that well, that it's hard to
• 1:05
  understand what goes through their little pea brains, whether
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  they think that they obviously think they are more than what
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  they really are. You can see that.
• 1:13
  Let's check out this story here. Victorian counselor Susan
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  Bissinger. Bissinger.
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  I'm assuming it's I'm going to go with Bissinger.
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  Forced to undergo personal development training following
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  dispute over a pride flag. How's this look?
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  Look, this is the new I've never seen this one before.
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  The progressive pride flag. If you've got this up on video,
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  you'll be able to see it. It's multiple colours.
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  I think that's in there. There's a little section which
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  looks like the original pride flag and now I've got everything
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  else, The circle, the train stuff.
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  Anyway, listen, in an affluent coastal Shire of Victoria's
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  Mornington Peninsula, Councillor Susan Bissinger has made claims
• 2:00
  that she was subjected to a personal development course
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  following her disagreement with the decision to permanently
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  hoist a progressive pride flag at all council offices
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  permanently. The mandate to undertake this
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  training emerged following mediation with the Shire Mayor.
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  So the main source of contention traces back to an online
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  discourse that followed Miss Bissinger, her fellow fellow
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  councillors and council staff about a proposed plan.
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  This plan aimed at the permanent display of the intersex
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  Inclusive Progress Pride flag OK at all the council offices
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  within the Shire. The modern version of the
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  classic rainbow flag. The classic rainbow flag What a
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  Unveiled in 2021 stands as an inclusive representative token
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  for the full LGBTQI plus rainbow, ABC, whatever community
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  encapsulating trans and intersects individuals.
• 3:02
  And it just constantly change. Hey, it constantly changes.
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  It's the modern version of the classic and I love this
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  representative token. It is very tokenistic, all
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  right, Miss Bissinger declared. The dispute was not revolving
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  and the significance of the flag itself.
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  Rather, her concern focused on the decision to fly what she
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  referred to as a divisive flag in a community primarily
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  characterized by its conservatism.
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  She referenced recent negative feedback from the community
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  about council performance. But you know, why would the
• 3:40
  council actually listen to community feedback?
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  The people that vote them in, why would they actually listen
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  to those people? Course they're the council, they
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  are so much, so much above what the people who actually LED them
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  elected them. They don't have to listen to
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  them anymore there. So this is all resulting in a re
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  evaluation of council image and introduction of a team assigned
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  to improve this aspect initially optimistic about the same
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  tomorrow. I'm not going to read that part.
• 4:10
  This is all just rubbish, but the the what really?
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  I think the the the most interesting part about this was
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  down the bottom here. An essential point raised in the
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  fallout of this controversy was that Miss Bissinger was an
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  elected figure of the community community, democratically chosen
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  to serve on the council. Issues arise when such figures
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  are prevented from executing their duties due to departmental
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  disagreements on topics such as flags, symbolism.
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  This move is regarded by some as anti democratic.
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  It is regarded as anti democratic.
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  Isn't it just anti democratic? You're elected.
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  You're an elected figure, an elected official of the
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  community, democratically chosen and and the things that you're
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  supposed to, the things that you want to bring forward because
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  you're a representative of the community, you're shut down,
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  Your voice is taken away from you.
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  What right do these clowns have to do that?
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  If you're elected? Aren't you supposed to be
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  speaking for the people that you represent within your Shire?
• 5:19
  And then, but yet you're shut down anyway, all in the name of
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  inclusivity? We will.
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  So, oh, so we're not going to include some people so that we
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  can include other people. And then those people that voted
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  and official in their voice gets shut down in the name of
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  supposed inclusivity. Wow, councils, like I said,
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  don't you wish, don't you long for the days when they actually
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  just did their jobs, you know, organize the rubbish, getting
• 5:59
  picked up on time and that kind of thing?
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  But hey, we're living in a crazy, crazy society.
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  This is Australia people. This is Australia.
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  Let me know what you think. Is there anywhere out there that
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  councils run that, you know, they just actually do their job
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  and don't try and be more than what they are long for?
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  The days when councils were just doing their job anyway, let me
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  know what you think. Thanks for listening to the
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  slippery slope.